The beginning
by sarge2.0
Summary: Harry, Hermione and Sally Perks meet in school aged 7 and discover magic, Hermiones parents adopt Harry and they learn magic on their own. manipulative dumbles, eventual h/hr. powerful independant harry,
1. Three with magic

Harry Potter sat in the dirt near the school yard trying to find the strength in his limbs to stand despite the beating his cousin and his gang had inflicted upon him. It had started as usual with the standard derogatory comments about his clothes (which were once Dudley's), his parents (despite the fact that Dudley's parents were worse than anything they or Dudley could come up with) and the fact that Harry had no friends (due to Dudley pounding anyone who so much as said 'hello' to him on a regular basis). He really didn't care about his clothes and knew that the Dursleys were worse than what they said about Harry's parents which made those comments very suspect even to a seven year old like Harry. It was the lack of friends that really bothered him.

Having friends would mean someone could see that he wasn't just a 'good for nothing freak' as his Aunt and Uncle frequently said. The only problem he saw with this was that strange things did happen to him on occasion; his hair growing back last month when Aunt Petunia shaved him near bald save his fringe and somehow finding himself on the roof of the school kitchens while jumping behind a row of bins to escape Dudley.

Finally gathering some strength, mainly due to the fact his cuts and bruises were not so sore now; he clambered to his feet and headed off to his classes. The beating he received and the required recovery time meant that he arrived to class ten minutes late for which he was given a detention and sat at the back of the class next to two new girls whom he had never seen before. He knew that they must be new students. He got out those pencils he had that had not been stolen or broken by various persons in the class (cough Dudley cough cough) and began to complete the set questions. Once he had completed them, with the required mistakes of course to make sure he wasn't going to be showing up his cousin, he looked over to the two girls on either side of him. The girl to his left was slight, with wavy mouse brown hair blue eyes and a prominent nose, though not protruding. This girl was still working through the problems shown though from the look of it was nearly finished.

To his surprise the girl to the right, with bushy brown hair, brown eyes and slightly overgrown front teeth was already finished and was reading "Matilda". Harry had already read the book a few times in the public library and was quite fond of it and read it when he had the chance to go there when his relatives forgot to give more chores after he finished.

"Do you like that book?" he asked her.

"Yes it's nice," she replied. "This author is really good, he wrote a lot of books and though he tends to write ones a bit shorter than most authors like Jane Austin his quality of writing is much better than most. I'm Hermione by the way, Hermione Granger."

"Harry Potter," Harry replied. "I like that book too; I've read it a couple of times at the library when my relatives forget to give me more chores."

"Do you like the author? There are several books that I've got that he wrote and most are really nice. You said there was a library here, can you show me where it is?" she spoke going quite fast. It took Harry several seconds to break down the words and put them in the sentences slow enough that he could understand her.

"Yes I like what he's written that I've read, but my Aunt and Uncle aren't going to be happy that I was late and I have to wash the car and clean the kitchen when I get home from detention so I can't show you today," Harry told her feeling let down.

"Why were you late? You didn't look well coming in," Hermione asked looking curious.

"Dudley and his gang beat me up before school," he said. "He's the one over there, the blond one who looks like a pig in a wig."

"The one who looks like he's aiming to be wider than he is tall?" she asked surprised at the size of him compared to Harry. Harry was a stick while the statement she made looked to be near fulfilment.

"That's him."

"Why didn't you tell the teacher?" she asked shocked that he didn't go to someone in authority to put a stop to it.

"I tried before but they just said I was lying and told my Aunt and Uncle. When they do I get chucked in my cupboard for a few days," Harry said calmly.

"Your cupboard what do you mean?" she asked confused.

"Where I sleep," he said sounding a little ashamed.

"You sleep in a cupboard?" gasped the girl on his left looking horrified. Harry just nodded.

"How could anyone do that?" she asked in a whisper. "That's horrible! Just letting you out to eat, go to school and the bathroom. Remember when my parents shut me in my room for a day for breaking their china tea set in a tantrum. That was bad but a cupboard would be horrible!"

Harry hesitated and Hermione noticed after looking confused for a few seconds a look of dawning comprehension appeared on her face.

"They didn't let you out at all did they?" she asked with tears in her eyes. She finally saw why he didn't stand up for himself and why he was so thin. He shook his head.

Both girls were silent as what he told them sank in. "I'm Sally-Anne Perks, you said your name was Harry didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes Harry Potter," he said.

"Well Harry, what about your friends?" Sally asked

"I don't have any, Dudley beat up anyone who came near me," Harry said. "You shouldn't really talk to me. He'd hurt you."

"We're not scared Harry. I know I didn't have any friends at my old school because everyone who came near me was ostracised," Hermione said.

"Same here, what does ostrakised mean?" Sally asked.

"Made an outcast," Hermione replied. "So would you be our friends?"

"O-Ok," he stuttered.

Harry was astonished that anyone would want to be his friend. No one had ever come near him willingly without trying to tease or beat him. Now suddenly two girls wanted to be his friends and so he was naturally suspicious. People had done this a couple of times before; come close, pretend to be his friend and then turn on him at the first opportunity. These two however didn't do anything of the sort and they talked for the rest of their free time during class. That time was over very quickly to Harry and he like everyone else left for lunch. Taking his sandwich that his aunt had reluctantly packed when people at school enquired as to why he never had anything to eat for lunch, he and his two new friends (hopefully) sat down on a secluded bench to eat.

Within minutes however the 'Fearsome Four' as the kids had dubbed them, made their appearance.

"Well, well, well, look who we have here," Dudley said. "The freak and the newbies. You two girls don't want to hang around with the freak here; he'll probably steal your stuff and try to blame others for it."

"Go away Dudley," Harry said.

"Yes you are nothing but a fat bully," Hermione said much to Harry's shock. This was usually the part where people decided to give him the slip and leave him to the Fours less than tender mercies. "I saw Harry in class and he's much smarter and a much better person than you so go away."

"Well you would like him," Dudley replied. "What's going on with your teeth? You look like a beaver. Beaver face!"

The rest of the gang started chanting "Beaver face!" over and over at Hermione and Harry did something he had never done before; he gave Dudley a shove sending him back on his backside.

"You'll pay for that freak!" said Dudley as he got back up and the rest of the four backed him up. One of them grabbed Hermione's metal lunch box and lifted it up to hit him on the head with it while another grabbed Sally's folder to do the same. Dudley and Piers, the remaining two both grabbed hold of Harry by both of his arms.

Then everything happened at once. Hermione and Sally started forward to try and get their possessions off the two and use them themselves, both the file and the lunch box flew up out of the bullies hands and began hitting them on the head repeatedly much to their and the two girls surprise and both Dudley and Piers' clothes caught fire. All four ran away screaming, and the two on fire were quickly shoved to the ground by a teacher which made them stop, drop and it was found that Dudley despite his shortcomings elsewhere, was a champion at rolling. After a few seconds of pursuit from the animated inanimate objects, the pounding stopped and they both flew back to the two girls who caught them automatically.

All three were shocked by what had happened, they each had had several inexplicable things happen to them before yet nothing seemed to be as potent or as overt as these. Harry was practically shaking as he realised he had just set Dudley on fire with no idea how he did it, this would mean he would get a terrible punishment.

Just then a teacher came up and tried to find out what had gone on. She was an eye-witness to the folder and lunch box chasing them but she was going to find out how Harry had supposedly set the other two on fire. She checked and saw that he had no cigarette lighters or matches and there was no smell on his hands so she was forced to conclude that Harry could not have set the two boys on fire so for completeness she checked the two girls with the same results.

All three were taken to the headmaster's office who informed him that the two who were attacked by the folder and lunch box suffered minor cuts and bruises. Dudley and Piers were more serious; both suffered third degree burns to twenty percent of their body and two and a half degree burns to another twenty five percent. They were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. All three children looked horrified and both girls started crying, particularly when the four policemen arrived and the three children were taken to the police station.

Hermione was shaking with fear, she knew she was in trouble for what happened and she knew that there was no logical explanation for what happened. What made it worse was that the two boys had been badly hurt, she had been told about how burns were classified, first degree was minor, just the first layer of skin, the dead layer, was burned and would usually peel and recover fairly quickly. Second degree was worse, the burn was to the second layer of skin, the real living layer and those took time to heal and were very painful. The next step was two and a half degree where the whole of the second layer was burned almost to the third layer and were the most painful and did slightly more damage. The third degree burns were the worst, they didn't hurt only because the skin was damaged to badly to be able to tell you it was hurt, the pain receptors and nerves were damaged and could result in permanent scarring.

She was led to an interrogation room by an officer there and was given a glass of water and told that her parents were being called and would arrive soon. While she waited she mulled over what had gone on that day. It had started out almost normal; she got up and put on her new uniform for school. She was looking forward to learning and hoped that she wouldn't be teased too much and maybe make a friend who wasn't after her homework. On arriving in class she was shown to her seat and told that there would be another new person in class that day and the two were introduced to the class. Ten minutes into the lesson a tiny boy walked in looking like he had been in a fight and the boy was promptly given detention for being late and sent to the back of the class. To her something seemed off; the boy seemed to be at most a first year, not a second year like the rest. He looked like he had been thoroughly beaten by whoever did that to him and his quiet acceptance showed that he really didn't seem to be the type that got into fights.

The boy was pushed to the back of her mind when they were given a set of questions and she set upon them eagerly, trying to impress the teacher and her parents with her work. After doing them in ten minutes she finished and got out her book to read. After a minute of reading she heard a soft voice from next to her.

"Do you like that book?"

She looked up and saw the boy who came late looking at her and her book. She answered in the affirmative and told him that she liked the author. He surprised her by saying that he had read that book and a few others at the library. She was hopeful that she had finally met a kindred spirit and they talked about their time before in other schools. She was shocked to learn of Harry's home life and spent an entire hour of the class talking about everything and anything with her two new friends Sally and Harry.

Then everything went wrong in the first few minutes of lunch.

The four bullies started in on Harry and Hermione knew that she would need to say something. Harry was her friend and she was not going to abandon him to these four, they were obviously the ones who had given him the beating that put him in such bad shape this morning. The four then turned on her and to her astonishment Harry defended her, even pushing Dudley as she remembered his name was onto his butt. The four then attacked Harry grabbing Hermione's lunch box and Sally's file to hit him while the other two grabbed him.

That was when one of her weird inexplicable things happened. She had known several things that occurred with no logical explanation before but this was the most overt of them all; her lunch box flew out of the bully's hands and started hitting him on the head as was Sally's file. The most astonishing was Dudley and his pal who were holding Harry caught on fire somehow. She was shocked to see the two friends she had do the same sort of things that kept happening to her. She realised that she was not alone with these things.

That's when she found out just how much trouble they were in. Two of the boys were in hospital, they were taken to the headmaster's office and the police were called. She was taken to the station along with Harry and Sally where she waited now for her parents to arrive so she could be questioned. They would be furious, she had put two people in hospital with her two friends and it was one of those weird things that no one could explain. She wandered what would happen to her, she didn't' know much about law, just what she had picked up from her parents talking. It was one area that she hadn't looked at in the libraries that she had frequented in her previous neighbourhood so she was completely in the dark.

It was over an hour before the door opened again and her mother walked in with a police officer. She sat down at a table with her mother at her side and the constable opposite her. She was shivering and her mother had her arm around her trying to calm her. The constable started with the standard recording lingo of date, time and the names of the people there before asking Hermione to tell him her version of what happened. She did so, outlining what had happened in class before and telling him everything she could remember about the boys, what they did, what Harry, Sally and herself had done. The only bit that she had trouble with was the ending, the cause of the injuries. After she finished she was asked a few questions about some details and she answered, all the while trying to stop herself panicking, imagining all the bad things that could happen. She could be locked away; she could be taken from her parents. For a second when she looked at her mother's face when she described how Dudley caught fire she feared her parents wouldn't want her around but that was the only one she could quash quickly.

After the interview finished they were left in the room while the officer talked to his colleagues and her mum asked if it was one of those strange things again to which she said yes and that Harry and Sally could do them too. Her mum looked thoughtful and commented that they should look into these things more closely to find out what causes them. Hermione agreed heartily, she was always eager to learn and she was starting to calm a bit as she didn't seem to be in too much trouble so far.

It was then that the constable returned and took them to a room where Harry, his aunt and uncle, Sally and her parents were already sitting. They were left in that room together and Hermione ran to Harry and hugged him and Sally. Jason and Emma Granger watched closely and were surprised to see Harry cringe when Hermione hugged him, finally relaxing after a second as Hermione started talking about what they had each done and gone through while being interviewed. They looked at each other knowing that both of them had caught his cringe and a look at Sally's parents showed that they too had caught it. They began to speak to the Harry's aunt and uncle and after less than a minute they realised that they were both unpleasant characters; conceited, nosey, arrogant and snobbish. They worshiped money and status and their opinion of Harry was obviously very low.

Sally's parents, Sue and Charles were much better in their opinion. They thought the world of Sally and her two younger brothers and were well respected, a well known nurse and lawyer respectively. It was them that spotted some of the signs.

"I don't like how Harry carries himself," Sue said her voice neutral with a hint of an emotion that they couldn't place. "How he seems to be timid with any movement. Did you notice earlier how he cringed when hugged?"

"'Course," Dan said. "What do you think about it? Could have been nervous that Hermione would be angry he got her into trouble which he didn't."

"It's not just that," Charles said his eyes narrowed as he looked at the children. "He's way too small; he's barely the size of our boys and their five, he has a pinched look and his eyes have a hint of fear."

"I've seen that look quite a few times before," Sue said grimly. "Whenever an abused kid comes in they look similar. At a glance he has been badly beaten recently and looks malnourished. Also those are not prescription glasses, I can tell from here. They are just cheap ones you can pick up for a few pounds at a pharmacist, not proper glasses."

"You think he's been abused at home?" Emma asked sharply. She hated child abuse in all forms; she had worked hard to have Hermione and again for another child. They had recently been forced to admit that they would never have another child and so children were precious.

"I'm fairly certain, though I'd need to talk to Harry first," she replied. "Sally?" she called. "Would you like to introduce us to your new friend?"

The trio hurried over, Sally and Hermione leading with Harry tagging along behind.

"Mum, Dad, this is Harry and Hermione," Sally said happily. She was glad to have friends now and on only her first day. She was sure that her daddy would help her as he was a lawyer and could work the courts.

"Hello Mr and Mrs Perks," said Harry shyly, his voice very quiet and seemed to want to blend into the background.

"Call us Sue and Charles dear," Sue said kindly. "Are you alright? You don't look well."

Harry hesitated, he knew that to tell adults what his aunt and uncle did would get him nowhere and would most likely get him shut away with no food for even longer. They might even give him a bad beating at home.

"He's hurt mummy, he was beaten up before school and his aunt and uncle are mean to him," Sally said.

"How are they mean?" Charles asked looking between Harry and Sally.

"T-They," Harry started. "They hit me when I don't do all my chores fast enough, then they lock me in my cupboard and don't let me have the scraps for tea."

All four adults were appalled with not only what he said but what he implied with his main points. It was not that he was locked in, it was where, it was not just that he was denied food but he implied that scraps were what was usual for him. They knew that this was genuine; no kid would be that subtle in his accusations unless coached and his physical shape told the rest. That decided it for them all, they were telling the police.

"Have you told anyone else about this?" Jason asked.

"I told the headmistress once, but they moved me out and by the time anyone came to check there was nothing wrong," Harry said. "They found out before and hit me when they were gone."

Harry then spilled a lot of information, beatings, starvation, his constant chores and doing everything around the house and his living conditions. He didn't know why he was telling them this but once he started talking he just couldn't stop, everything came out in one go. Hermione and Sally were in tears by the end and their parents looked murderous. They all knew that if it was even half as bad as Harry made out those people were going to be behind bars for a long time.

A few minuted after Harry finished the officers came back in.

"Well, what are they going to be charged with," barked Vernon impatiently.

"There is nothing to charge them with," a sergeant said. "We could find no trace of ignition sources on their hands; we found no matches or other lighters on them. Then there were the flames; they erupted simultaneously on both boys all over, the only way that could have happened was if they poured petrol on them which didn't happen. The other two boys who were apparently beaten with the file and lunch box had stories that contradicted each other while witnesses said none of the three laid hands on any of the four boys. Put simply there is no evidence that they committed a crime and we are simply baffled as to how any of this occurred in the first place."

"WHAT!" Petunia screamed. "They hurt my Dudders and they get off!"

"There is no evidence that they did anything Mrs Dursley," another officer said. "Thus there is no way we can charge them."

"Of course that freak did it!" shouted Vernon. "They all did! They always do freaky things like that and they make you think they had nothing to do with it!"

"That's enough Mr Dursley that was uncalled for," the sergeant said sternly.

"Sergeant could we speak with you on a related matter," Emma said her voice grim. "In private thank you."

"Of course," he said and led both Hermione and Sally's parents through to another room. Once there the four voiced their concerns as to Harry's welfare, citing their prior experience, observations and Harry's story that he told them in the room. Needless to say the sergeant was deeply disturbed when they recounted Harry's story and when they mentioned his previous attempt to seek help was covered up by his relatives he agreed that they should search the Dursleys house immediately before they could try to hide the evidence again.

"We should be able to search without a warrant because we have good suspicion that a crime is being committed in that house," he said. "I'll get another few officers and go around there soon but I'll need to speak to Harry first."

Once they agreed, Harry was taken to a room for a formal statement, obviously his guardians were absent and so Charles offered to stand in as a lawyer on Harry's behalf. It took Harry ten minutes to give his statement of the events of his life and when asked if he had proof of this he offered to show them his cupboard where he slept and showed him the scars on his back. The sergeant was furious and asked him if he would go home with his Aunt and Uncle and they would follow behind which Harry agreed to. Once the kids were released Harry was half dragged to his Aunt and Uncles car with the threat of "a good solid beating when you get home." He hoped that the policeman would be there quickly.

Hermione was relieved that she wasn't in any trouble for what happened at school today. She sat in the back of the car and relaxed though her mind was whirring. So much had happened to her today; just this morning she was the new girl with no friends trying to settle in a new school. Now she had two new friends who also had strange things happen to them. The only down note was Harry was going back to his relatives and things there were really bad. She couldn't believe that anyone would do something like that to someone like Harry; she just couldn't get her head around it.

"Mummy," she asked. "Why did Harry's aunt and uncle do those things to him? He was so nice, why would anyone do that?"

Emma sighed, saddened that her daughter had to see the cruelty of the world so early. "Sometimes people are just bad like that. I doubt Harry did anything to them and in any case nothing could justify them doing that. They just do that because they can."

"That's horrible," Hermione said with tears in her eyes. "Why are they like that?"

"I don't know angel," Emma said sadly. "Some people are just bad like that. There is no explanation. I just hope that the police would put them away for a very long time."

"And what would happen to Harry after that?" Hermione asked. "Where would he go?"

"He would probably go to a children's home," she replied. "If he has no parents or relatives he would be put in government care and possibly adopted."

"Will I ever see him again?" Hermione asked tearfully.

"I don't know sweetheart," Emma said gently. "Possibly. But it all depends on where he goes."

"Could we adopt him?" Hermione asked. "I've always wanted a brother. Could we mummy?"

Emma sat, lost in thought as she pondered the question that Hermione had asked. She had been worried about her daughter at her old school, she had been friendless and bullied by most and had a lot of false friends but Harry had stood up for her against four larger opponents. There was also the way that Harry had opened up to them; something about Harry had just clicked with Hermione. She could see that from how they seemed to be friends from the very beginning, after just an hour they were tight as if they'd known each other for months if not years.

The idea of adopting Harry was very tempting; she wanted another child to look after and love and watch grow and here was one that practically landed in their laps. A friend of Hermione, looking for a home with love in it, seemed to like books and even had the strange tendency to have inexplicable thing happen around him like Hermione did.

"I think that's a good idea Hermione," she said. "Your farther will be home by five from the clinic and I'll discuss it with him but I think he would say yes."

"Thank you mummy!" she squealed bouncing excitedly in her seat.

"That will all depend on if Harry is released from his relatives care and is available for adoption," Emma said. "So don't go getting your hopes up yet. Wait 'till he is able to be adopted before you start expecting him to be part of our family."

"I know mummy but this will be great!" Hermione said excitedly. "This is the best day of my life!"

Sergeant Halaway was following about half a mile behind Vernon Dursleys car on its journey back to Privet Drive. He and his partner were well prepared to search the house and find the evidence promised, the mannerisms Harry had shown fitted with his own experiences with abused children though luckily he had met very few of them. Thus he was confident that they would find evidence enough to put the two away for a long time, the only problem would be to get there and search before Harry was hurt. He hated that they had just enough evidence to justify a search for more but not enough to remove Harry from their custody or even detain them while they searched. He knew that an event like this could easily lead to physical punishment to Harry so he tried to time it so he would arrive just after the Dursleys got through the door. That way Harry wouldn't be hurt and they could get him out and those two behind bars quickly. That is if everything went according to plan.

He finally turned onto Privet Drive just in time to see Harry be pushed through the door which was slammed behind Vernon a few seconds later. He parked on the verge outside No 6 and both he and his partner got out and walked quickly towards No 4, peering through the window as he saw Harry being dragged into the living room and Vernon shout, "You're going to get it now freak!"

They quickened their pace as they headed towards the door, before movement in the living room caught his eye. Vernon was pulling a golf club out of a bag and telling his wife to pin the boy down so he could beat him. His original plan was to knock on the door and inform them of the search but that plan was scrapped as soon as he saw that. With a nod to his partner they drew batons and Tasers and went straight through the door which was still unlocked. Upon seeing Vernon raise the club about to bring it down on the boys' legs, he snapped up his Taser and fired. Four sharp barbs buried themselves in the vast expanse of Vernon's chest and delivered a large electric shock, dropping him and the club to the floor.

"How dare you do that to my Vernon!" Petunia screamed, grabbing the club and swinging it at them. Halaway's partner quickly deflected the blow with his baton and hit her on the hand with it, breaking a few bones and causing her to drop the club. Harry quickly scuttled out of the way towards the kitchen away from the screaming and fighting as the two officers charged Petunia off her feet, pinned her and snapped handcuffs on her. They read her, her rights and led her off to the car while another car pulled up to collect Vernon and look for evidence. He knew that he could get them for attempted assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and all he had to do was search for evidence of abuse.

This was turning into an eventful day.

Hermione was bouncing excitedly and anxiously on her bed, thoughts flashing through her head as she waited for her parents to call her downstairs. Her dad was home and her parents were debating whether they would adopt Harry or at least become his guardians or not. She was very eager to have Harry as a brother; he was the only person who stood up for her apart from her parents, the only one who she could relate to on a child's level. Someone who had the same problems and had the weird stuff happen. She decided to distract herself from thinking about the adoption by trying to figure out what the weird stuff was.

She approached the problem logically; the two boys caught fire and the two objects kept hitting the other two on the head by themselves. She considered bouncing properties of the devices and knew that there was no way they would do that on their own. Somehow they were made to do that, just like magic. It struck her like a bolt of lightning, _magic!_

That was the only solution, the only thing that filled in the blanks. She and probably Harry and Sally could do magic.

The problem she faced now was what to do. The things that she had done before were not controlled; all they were were outbursts that seemed to be completely instinctive. So what causes them?

She looked back on the situation and the others that she remembered: the bully in first year having his chair break suddenly, her cousin who stole her pencils and broke them suddenly turning sickly green all over, when she was about to be hit by that car and suddenly found herself on the other side of the road. What linked them?

After several minutes of thinking it finally came to her, emotions. Every time something happened she was scared or angry and what happened made her feel better or solved it: the bully and her cousin she got her revenge on with magic and when she was about to be hit by the car her magic got her out of the way.

Now how to control it?

She thought about it; if emotions did something she decided to think of a powerful emotion. She recalled the sorrow of her pet cat being hit and tried to focus it into moving a book on the other side of the room. Nothing happened. It must be in the mind, she thought. If she focused enough could she do something? Was she starting too big? She decided to simply make a small ball of light appear in her hand. She turned off the light and sat on her bed in the low light, closed her eyes and focused with all her might, imagining the ball of light in her outstretched right hand. After a few seconds she opened her eyes and gasped.

A beautiful ball of golden light hovered millimetres above her skin in her right hand. She looked closer and saw swirls of bright energy within. She decided to try and change the colour. She pictured it turning blue and after a second it turned a vivid electric blue just like she had imagined.

There was a knock on the door and her mother walked in and stopped dead in the door way, looking with wide eyes at Hermione sitting on the bed with a ball of light in her hand.

"Isn't it beautiful mum?" she said with wander in her voice. She focused again and it turned gold yet again.

"h-how?" her mum stammered.

"Magic mum," Hermione said happily. "I can do magic! I was thinking about what happened in the school yard and the other times and it was the only thing I could think of. It must be in my mind that I control this because there weren't any other similarities. I knew that emotions had something to do with it so I tried that and it didn't work so I tried simply concentrating and it worked!"

Emma simply stood there flabbergasted at her daughter. She knew there was something different about her but magic?

"Magic?" she said still sounding dazed.

Now Hermione began to worry, she had heard many stories about the witches in the middle ages; how they were burned at the stake. Did her mum think the same of her? Would she still want her after this? Her euphoria at her discovery vanished like smoke.

"Mummy?" she said in a small voice, unsure of what her reply would be.

It was that small slightly scared voice that snapped Emma out of her funk. She looked at her daughters' worried face and walked toward her, taking her into her arms.

"What's wrong?" she asked, she couldn't' understand why Hermione would be euphoric one moment and suddenly be looking at her like she was scared of her or something.

"Y-You aren't mad?" Hermione asked. "I h-heard about how people u-used to see m-m-magic. You still want me?"

That shocked her and immediately saw that she was to blame. Her reaction to the revelation Hermione had greeted her with could be seen to be one of fear or loathing setting in and Hermione being as bright as she is made the connection with other attitudes to magic from the past.

"Of course I still want you darling; magic isn't bad, it's just a part of you. I know you thought I was mad or something before but I was just shocked. I never expected this when I came up here. I always will love you and want you no matter what you are."

"Thank you," Hermione whispered back relieved. It was just like how her mother comforted her when she was bullied at her old school so she knew it was genuine.

"You don't need to thank me Hermione. I love you and that's all there is to it and that wont' change. Now I came up here to tell you..."

Hermione's head snapped up again, in her fear about her mum she forgot about Harry.

"Can he live with us?" she blurted out.

"Yes your farther agrees. If Harry agrees and we are allowed to we will at least become his permanent foster parents."

"YES!" Hermione squealed in delight hugging her mum tight before running down the stairs and trowing herself into her father's arms and squeezing him tightly. "Thank you daddy!"

"Any time angel," her father said. "We know that the two of you have just clicked and we always wanted another child so we'll see the social worker for Harry's case tomorrow about adoption. It will probably take some time though; adoptions usually take some time."

At the end of Privet Drive a tall bearded man in a purple cloak with silver stars and moons appeared with a slight pop. He immediately began to walk through the late evening twilight towards No 4. He was very concerned that the various different sensors and gadgets he had keyed to Harry and the wards were all shutting down. He knew that the wards had all but collapsed and he wanted to know why. With a flick of his wand he sent a message to Arabella Figg who lived nearby and continued walking briskly towards the object of many of his plans. Unfortunately for him the destruction of the wards could only be attributed to a handful of things, none of which would bode well for Dumbledore's plans. He needed the brat pliant so he could mould him into a weapon to be thrown at Voldemort and do some damage, allowing Dumbledore to come charging in as the cavalry to save the day. That way he would be thrown into the spotlight as the greatest light wizard of all time and thus gain the power he had so long desired. He turned down the minister's job frequently because he knew that any minister would go out of office with his name sullied to the point that he would never be able to wield true power over the masses.

The main thorns in his side were the muggle-borns. He had nothing against the people as a whole; in fact he knew quite well that muggle-borns were far superior to the pureblood witches and wizards both in intellect and in magical power. Most of his better pawns were muggle born; Lilly Evans, Alice Smith, Jessica Marsh and many others. All were important tools in getting him more power and keeping the purebloods under control. The only down point of them was their ideas: Democracy, separation of powers, equality in all things. Those were dangerous to his plans; democracy would negate his goal of kingship permanently, separation of powers would ensure that the road to kingship would be unwalkable and equality in all things was a good idea but they never understood that some are more equal than others.

Pure bloods were the next worse; they almost always believed that they were superior simply because they were born with magical ancestors. It was easy to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that children born only of magical ancestors with no muggles or muggle-borns as far back as their great grand parents would experience a significant drop in their magical potential. It is just before that stage that the phenomenon of squibs arises. No muggle-born had ever produced a squib. Ever. Dumbledore knew from research that the fresher the magic the more potent it is. The only time long magical ancestry is good for magic is when the old that is kept strong by fresh infusions is bred with the best of the fresh. That combination of ancient and new, magics that had existed and survived the test of time with the brand new magic that is unbound and unworn always creates powerful witches and wizards. Unfortunately the only people who practice this, if unintentionally, are the Potters. They always find the brightest and most powerful witch of their age who is almost always muggle-born and marry them. The only other way to get that effect is to reawaken the magic of an old line that died out in magic via squibs, but they only happen very rarely, not many lines are still around in squib form at all.

He quickly directed his thoughts back to the house that he was approaching. The car was still in the garage and the furnishings were all there. A simple charm showed him that there were no people in the house so he unlocked the door and went in. He saw no signs of a struggle and no evidence of packing or anything, in fact if it weren't for the fact that it was evening on a working day and the car was in the garage he would have thought they were simply out for a movie or some such thing. He checked the tracking charms he had placed on Harry only to find they were down and cursed the nature of blood wards. They only allowed spells that were keyed into them to work and so if the wards were down his tracking charms were as well.

Whatever happened Harry no longer had this place as a home. Without him sufficiently beaten down how could he mould Harry into the martyr he needed him to be? Without him how would he keep the wizarding world in line? Plans he had put in motion since he had first met Tom Riddle and used him as a pawn were unravelling and at this stage could back fire horribly. It was time to track Harry the old fashioned way, find his habits and follow them to their conclusion. He walked out, spoke to Figg and found nothing new before disapparating. It was time to plot some more.


	2. Rivers of the stones

A/N just for the people out there, I got my inspiration for this fic from Rising Powers by anix 113. I just took the idea to a different place and added more to it. The names for Hermione's parents are the same as in Robst's fic "Knowledge is power"

Harry was lying on a bed in a hospital just outside of Little Winging listening to the sounds of the machinery beeping around him. He had woken up a few minutes before and had no idea where he was, the last thing he remembered was the ambulance officer who had taken him from the house saying he would give him a needle to calm him down.

"Hello," a strange new voice said. Looking up he saw that a young looking nurse had just walked in. She was small for her age and had a pleasant heart shaped face that immediately made Harry relax a bit. "It's good to see you awake; are you in any pain?"

"Not really," Harry lied. He had several aches and was very stiff on top of a feeling of being bruised deep in his chest around his ribs but he was fairly used to pain having been struck several times by his cousin and uncle.

"You should be," she said. "I think you're lying. Everyone has some aches and stiffness after surgery."

"What did I need surgery for? I can't remember anything," Harry asked confused.

"We did X-rays while you were unconscious and we found a few broken bones that hadn't set properly," she explained. "The doctors had to re-break the bones and set them properly."

"How did I get knocked out?" Harry asked.

"The officer gave you a shot that should have just calmed you but with such low nutrition and weight you were knocked out instead," the nurse explained. "They had to give you some more drugs to counter act the previous ones. In total you had three broken ribs, an arm broken in four places and a minor fracture in your skull. The last one we just tried to realign the segments as they had been knocked slightly out of line, we didn't want to risk trying to completely heal it."

"How long was I sleeping?" he asked.

"Just under fourteen hours, it's seven in the morning."

"Thank you."

"It's my pleasure."

"What happens to me now," Harry asked looking slightly nervous.

"Well we'll have a social worker look at your case and try to find some foster parents, in the mean time though you'll be put in a children's home," the nurse replied.

"What will the foster parents be like?" Harry asked.

"They'll be a family that will take care of you for a period of time and maybe someone will adopt you. The families are all good people Harry, if we heard even a hint of what happened to you they wouldn't be foster parents."

"That's good," Harry replied. He was very pleased that he might get a family, though even children's home would be better than the Dursleys. Speaking of which, "What happened to my aunt and uncle?"

"They were arrested and they're looking at ten years at least, maybe as high as twenty, twenty five. There's no chance of you having to live with them again."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. His worst fear had changed to having to go back to his relatives after almost being free forever. Now he knew that there was nothing to be afraid of.

"What do I do now? Do I need to go somewhere else?" Harry asked.

"No we need to keep you in for a day or two to make sure that there aren't any complications with the surgery. A social worker should be in around four, until then is there anything you would like? Are you hungry?"

"Yes, is there any breakfast?"

"Of course, I'll bring you some and you can watch TV for a while."

"Really?" Harry asked excitedly. He had never really watched TV before, he caught a few glimpses of it and heard it when his relatives watched it but he had never been allowed to watch fully before.

"Yes, don't tell me they didn't let you see anything before?" the nurse asked with a frown.

"No they didn't, I caught some glimpses and heard it sometimes but they didn't let me actually watch any programs."

"In that case I'd say you should watch some. This is something new; usually when the kids are in here we can't pry them away from the TV."

"Thank you ma'am."

"You're welcome; I'll be back in a few minutes with breakfast."

As Harry lay back against the pillow and watched and laughed at the cartoons he thanked his lucky stars and Hermione and Sally for helping him out of his personal hell. He just hoped that he would be able to see Hermione and Sally again, they were his first friends and they had barely spent a few hours together.

The door opened and a young woman walked in.

Jason and Jane Granger woke the morning following the revelation that their daughter and possibly the two new friends that she had made the previous day were magical to Hermione's delighted squeals. Getting up they found her in the kitchen floating the ingredients for a Milo around from across the room.

"Look mummy and daddy!" she said excitedly as the milk poured itself into the cup. "I can do all this with magic! I love it don't you?"

"Wow," Jason breathed as the cup floated across the room to Hermione who caught it and began to drink.

"How did you manage to do that dear?" Jane asked.

"I just pictured what I wanted in my head really clearly and it happened. I started with a pencil in my room and I got that to work after ten minutes. Now it's easy!" she said in rush.

"That's wonderful dear but please don't try anything new unless someone else is there," Jane asked.

"Why?" Hermione asked confused.

"We don't know much about magic; what it requires to work, what effects it has on you, what limits there are on magic, things like that," Jane explained. "There might be some things that could hurt you and we want to at least be on hand to care for you if something goes wrong."

"Ok but I can use other things on my own?" she asked.

"If you've used them before then ok, but you come to us if things go wrong. Now, enough serious talk and we could do with some food."

They all sat at the table and ate their bacon and eggs talking about inconsequential things before Jane set down her knife and fork.

"It's half eight dear, I need to head in so could you talk to the social worker about Harry?"

"'Course," he said. "Would you like to come along sweetheart?" he asked Hermione.

"Yes daddy!" she said excitedly. She was looking forward to seeing Harry again and she knew that the person they were going to meet was going to tell them yes or no. She wanted to be there to try and do everything she could to get Harry to stay with them.

"Just one thing about the magic sweetheart," Jane said as she put on her cloak. "Try not to use it if you don't have to around people who don't know about it. Some people could get angry or upset if they saw that, like Harry's relatives so you shouldn't use it where other's can see."

"But Harry and Sally are all right?" she asked.

"Of course, they have magic too. Call me when you find out if Harry can stay alright?" Jane said as she grabbed her keys and left.

"Come on munchkin," Jason said with a smile. "Time to get Harry."

Hermione ran out of the room to grab her coat and was back down ready to go in record time. She couldn't wait.

All through the drive to the child services centre Hermione bounced hyperactively in her seat, to anxious and excited to stay still. Questions kept running through her head; will Harry be allowed to stay with us? What will he think of magic? Is he any good at it? What can we do with our magic? Will sally think it is good?

All those questions kept running through her head over and over until at last they pulled into the parking lot outside a large square building that had Her Majesty's Child Protection Agency above the door. It was a grim but boring grey construction that seemed to fade into the background, and appeared to be designed to make people overlook it as they go past; just another office on the block.

They went in to a spartan reception area where they were told to wait while the social worker who had processed their applications was brought in. When she finally arrived Hermione thought that she looked very much like a plain business woman; suit and pants, with plain black formal shoes and her hair in a neat bun. Her blue eyes were the only things that hinted at some life in her and Hermione thought that she looked to be as good as anyone to get Harry to live with them.

"Hello again Jason, it's nice to see you here so soon after the approval was granted. How's life for you?"

"Quite well thank you Irene. And you?"

"Not too bad, though there is one poor case that just came up in the area of an abused child who we are looking to settle and get to a good home. So what brings you here today?"

"We were looking to adopt a child, or at least become his foster parents," Jason said simply.

"From your wording I assume you have a specific child you wish to adopt?" Irene asked curiously.

"Yes though I'm not sure it would be possible at the moment; he has only just lost his _guardians,_" he growled the last word with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "And we knew that he would be in need of a home. He and Hermione had really hit it off at school, they just clicked straight away. His name is Harry Potter."

"Potter?" Irene said curiously. "Come into my office for a moment."

They walked into the office which had three simple chairs and a desk, a set of filing cabinets and shelves and a window that looked over the wondrous expanse of the adjoining buildings outer wall. She took a file out of the cabinets, set it on the desk and had a quick look through.

"Ah yes it says that it was a tip from Hermione here that led to the abuse being discovered, having already stood up to some local bullies together."

"Is he the child that you mentioned earlier?" Jason asked curious.

"Yes he is. I guess it would be safe to say that they could be friends quickly. The only stumbling block is the previous guardians; as they haven't actually been stripped of their guardianship at a hearing then Harry would be their ward. Only once Harry has officially been declared a ward of the state could we actually look into adopting him."

"Is there any way around that?" Jason asked.

"The only way is if for some reason there was something that was wrong with the initial guardianship which I could look into though it is unlikely."

"How long are we looking at before Harry is able to be adopted?"

"If we get a hearing at an early time then two weeks. If we hit some problems with the hearing then it may be as much as three months or more."

"_Three months,"_ Hermione gasped looking shocked.

"That is the worst case," Irene said. "Though I hope to be able to ask him in a month and if he agrees then we should be able to have things sorted in a month."

"That's all right," Jason said looking at the guardianship form on the table.

"Daddy," Hermione said looking at the paper.

"Yes munchkin?"

"Aren't there supposed to be two signatures on the form?"

Both adults looked at the form and their eyes widened when they saw that there was just the signature of some social worker named Dumbledore and none from the Dursleys.

"There is indeed supposed to be two signatures," Irene acknowledged. "Essentially as they formally didn't agree to take guardianship of Harry then he is technically a ward of the state already and there need be no hearing."

"Does that mean Harry can stay with us?" Hermione asked happily.

"If he wants to he can," Jason said.

"That's all good then," Irene said pleased that he was able to help this family to have another child and Harry to find a new home. "I just need to speak to Harry about his... relatives. Then I can ask him if he would like to live with you. If he says yes we can fill out the forms and he will be your ward by tonight."

"Tonight!" Hermione squealed excitedly. She jumped up, ran around the desk and hugged her tightly. "Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome dear. This is the main reason I like this job."

"Shall we go then?" Jason asked and gestured towards the door with a smile on his face.

Harry looked up when the woman walked in, knowing immediately from her clothing that she wasn't a nurse.

"Hello Harry, My name is Irene Baker and I'm the social worker who will be looking out for you from now on."

"Hello," Harry said quietly. "So you will be looking for somewhere for me to stay after this?"

"Yes and I just need to let you know something first. Usually when a child's parents or guardians are dead or not able to look after them anymore then they go into the child services system and if the parents are arrested then there is a hearing to determine if the child can stay with the guardians until their trial. With you fortunately we won't have to go through that because of a mistake in the procedure that put you with your aunt and uncle in the first place. Essentially your aunt and uncle technically were not your guardians ever, so there doesn't need to be a hearing. Right now you are able to be adopted or go into foster care at any time."

"Can I chose who I go to?" Harry asked looking hopeful.

"As long as they agree and they have passed the checks they yes."

"They're the checks that make sure the foster people aren't like the Dursleys right?"

"Exactly."

"So how long will it be before there are some foster parents? Will I have to go to a children's home?" Harry felt ambivalent at that idea; his uncle had told him that the children's homes are horrible places. Yet on the other hand Hermione seemed to care for him and his uncle also said that that would never happen.

"Actually there is a family that specifically asked about you; I believe you know the Grangers?"

Harry could hardly believe it. "Hermione?" he gasped.

"Yes her and her parents would like to adopt you if you like," Irene said pleased with his reaction.

"I would get to live with Hermione and her parents?" Harry asked hardly daring to believe that he could be this lucky. Hermione had already got him away from his relatives with her parents help and now they wanted him to be part of their family?

"Yes you would, would you like that?" Irene asked.

"Of course! Can I talk to them?"

"They're in the hospital right now, I'll go get them," and with that she walked out the door leaving Harry to wait excitedly for his first friend to come. He had to wait less than a minute before what could be described as a bushy haired Harry-seeking missile aka Hermione came through the doors and hugged him fiercely. He tensed at the unexpected contact for a second but quickly relaxed and hugged her back.

"Irene said that you said yes!" Hermione squealed happily.

"That I would live with you? Of course I said yes! You're my first friend and you got me out of there, I was just surprised you wanted me."

"Of course we want you, you're the first real friend I ever had too and you stood up to those bullies for me and Sally. No-one had ever done that for me and we're alike in so many ways you'll fit right in."

Harry smiled and looked up at Hermione's parents.

"We've wanted another child for years," Jason said smiling at the young boy who his daughter was still hugging. He had never seen her this clingy before and supposed it was because she finally had a friend. "My wife can't have children so we were already looking to adopt and you were everything we could ask for in a son. That and you and Hermione just clicked like brother and sister and best friends straight away. I'm not a big believer in fate by it seems you were meant to be part of our family."

"If that's alright with you?" Harry said tentatively.

"Of course it is."

"So if you both are in agreement then we just need to fill out the forms," Irene said pleased. It was rare that she would find a case where someone was adopted this quickly and for it to happen to someone who had been abused was fantastic. Often those kids were in a home for months with no one on one care from a parent figure which often led to problems. She was glad that it could be avoided with Harry.

In the car on the way back to the Grangers Hermione explained to Harry that she had figured out that what they could do was magic and showed him by levitating a pen that was below the CD player and bringing it to the back of the car.

"Can I do that too?" Harry asked amazed.

"I'm sure you can, just concentrate on what you want to happen," Hermione said. "Don't try to push it out, just concentrate on what you want to happen and it will."

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated on the pen moving into the air and hovering at head height. He opened his eyes to see the pen exactly where he wanted it and decided to experiment a little. He looked at a piece of paper in the front and willed it to come into the back and float with the pen. To his delight the pen and paper were soon hanging in the air in front of him before he tried to make the pen write. That part didn't go quite as he planned as the pen went straight through the paper the first time much to Hermione's amusement and the second time it just produced illegible scribble.

"Looks like you should just try to stick with using your hands in school Harry," Hermione giggled.

"I will but I want to try to anyway. I want to see what I can do," he replied stubbornly.

He spent the rest of the car ride fine tuning the control he had with the pen and paper and by the end he had gotten the control to the point where he could write legibly.

"Wow Harry!" Hermione said surprised when they pulled up at their house. "You're good at this."

"Thanks," he mumbled, pleased and slightly surprised at her compliment.

"Here we go Harry," Jason said kindly. "Your new home."

"Thank you so much," Harry said happily. "You have a wonderful home."

"It's yours too now remember," Hermione said. "As of half an hour ago you are now Harry James Potter-Granger."

The next ten minutes were spent showing Harry around the house and getting his bedroom set up. There were mixed feelings at Harry's ecstasy at getting an actual bedroom rather than a cupboard to sleep in; both were very happy that Harry was finally happy and had a good home, sad that he had to go through those horrible things at his previous house and anger at the Dursleys for their part in making that reaction possible. After a lunch in which Harry was very pleased to be served as much as the others, the two kids went into the back yard to practice magic. While they were out there, Harry got the idea of trying to recreate the accidental magic that they had done in the past. They both decided to work on creating fire as that was what Harry had done in the school yard. After five minutes Harry managed to make a small flame appear in the palm of his hand and it took them over half an hour to finally get it to work with some form of consistency. Once they had managed to get that working they moved onto changing the colour of things; redecorating the back garden furniture in various different colours over the course of the next two hours.

Finally Harry and Hermione came back in the house tired and sweaty from their magic and found their father on the phone to someone.

"... and you can do ten tomorrow?... Good, we'll see you then. Bye."

He turned to the kids.

"Who was that daddy?" Hermione asked as she poured herself a glass of water.

"The Perks'," he said. "I thought that as you guys were friends we should tell them about magic."

"That's great," Hermione said with a million watt smile. "We talked about Sally outside and we were going to ask if we could go and tell her some time."

"Well all five of the Perks' are coming tomorrow; sue, Charles, Sally and her little brothers Josh and Samuel. Josh seems to be showing the same signs as you two and Sally," Jason said as he sat at the kitchen table.

"All those strange things happening?" Harry asked.

"I think those are just magic acting automatically when we're upset, scared or angry," Hermione piped up.

"I ran that theory past them and it fits the outbursts Josh has had. From your appearances using magic is hard work."

"Yes it was," Hermione said. "It wasn't physically tiring as such; it was more like it drained your energy. Once we got it to work though it was easy and we didn't have to work so hard."

"That's interesting," Jason said. "Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know," Hermione said looking frustrated. "If we work hard and get nothing it tires us, but if we get what we want it doesn't as much."

"Did you notice that smell, like lightning?" Harry said. "Does that have anything to do with it do you think?"

"Was it there all the time?" Jason asked.

"No, just when we weren't getting anything," Hermione said looking thoughtful, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she thought hard.

"Maybe the magic was going out but wasn't being used for anything so it just hung around," Harry said tentatively.

Hermione clapped her hands excitedly. "That's it! Whenever I pointed my hand at the things we wanted to change I felt a sort of tingling, flowing feeling in my hand! Magic needs focus like a lens, otherwise it doesn't work."

"Do you think we should try to make a wand or something?" Harry asked. "In the stories I read at the school library, magical people used those to use their magic."

"I think that would be the best way to go but obviously it isn't vital," Jason said. "You guys do magic without a wand or anything just fine, though it would probably be easier with one, or a staff for that matter."

"Where could we get one?" Hermione asked. "Could we just use any stick? Do we need special rituals or parts?"

"I don't know sweetheart," Jason said. "We could look through stories and see if there is anything in them about wands or staves. In the meantime, I think you two deserve some rest before we go out tonight."

"Where are we going?" Hermione asked.

"De Betachies," he replied. "We need to celebrate your magic and Harry becoming part of our family."

"Yes!" Hermione squealed and hugged him tightly.

"What's De Betachies?" Harry asked confused.

"It's Hermione's favourite restaurant," Jason said looking amused at his daughter's antics. "She's particularly partial to the salmon fillets they do there."

"You have to try them Harry!" Hermione said. "It's better than chocolate!"

"Then we really should go then," Harry said looking pleased and happy to see Hermione so happy.

The next day Harry and Hermione woke early, both eager to try learning more magic. Each was flickering through all the ideas they had ever had and every book or movie that they had ever seen to try to find things they could try. They crept downstairs and into the back yard, which was still rainbow coloured from their spree the previous day and sat down on a bench.

"What do you think we should try?" Harry asked.

"Well we can change colours, create a ball of light and we can levitate things; why not try transfiguration, you know changing something into something else."

"That's a good idea, though we should start off small, like a rock into a button or something," Harry said looking thoughtful.

"That's a good idea, but how should we go about it?" Hermione mused for a few seconds. "We pictured what we wanted to happen with the others; maybe we should picture what we want the rock to change into."

Harry levitated a small rock over to where they sat and tried to change it. After four minutes he was sweating and gave it to Hermione to try, with no better results.

"Why isn't it working?" Harry asked sounding frustrated and upset. He was looking forward to learning and playing with magic but they were falling over so many times.

"We must be going about it the wrong way," Hermione said frowning. "Let's start at the beginning; what exactly were you thinking when you made the chairs change colour? That has to be closer to what we're trying to levitation."

Harry thought for a second before finally saying "I've got it!" he looked at the rock in Hermione's lap and in seconds he had changed it into a button.

"Yes!" Hermione squealed excitedly. "How did you do it?"

"Focus on the rock, then picture it changing into a button, rock becoming plastic," he explained.

Hermione found another rock and within a minute she had a button in the palm of her hand much to her pleasure. They spent the next hour transfiguring things, from the bench (Which became a rather good bicycle) to a small garden gnome statue that they had around the pond (the resulting vase Harry wanted to give to Mrs Perks when they came over) before Harry called to Hermione to stop.

"What is it?"She asked.

"When you were doing magic did you feel anything?" he asked. "A pull or flowing inside you?"

"Actually I did, but only really when we did big things. Little things had no effect; do you think that's our magic?"

"Yes, I think so. It makes sense that we need more magic to change a bench than a small rock," Harry said thoughtfully. "That's another thing, the air and ground around here seems different than at Privet Drive or the school, can you feel it?"

"Sort of, it's like when we did that magic at school only it's there all the time. I felt it when we first moved in here a few weeks ago, but I must have gotten used to it."

"Do you think there is magic in the ground?" Harry asked. "It would make sense; places like Stonehenge and so on are supposed to be sights of magic and stuff."

"But why would there be places where magic is or isn't if there is magic in the ground?" Hermione asked. "If that was the case it would be everywhere."

"Maybe it's like a river or something," Harry put in. "It only flows through certain paths."

Hermione thought for a few seconds. "I think you're right. It makes sense."

"Anyway, mum and dad must be up by now so we should go in."

They walked into the kitchen, a bit dusty and sweaty form their exertions to find Emma cooking a large saucepan of porridge.

"Hello you two," she said looking up from the stove. "What were you doing that made you so sweaty?"

"We were trying transfiguration," Hermione said as she slumped into a chair at the table, summoning a cup with a gesture and filling it with a thought. Emma looked a bit disconcerted with the casual use of magic her daughter showed before asking about the subject.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Turning something into something else," Harry said and demonstrated by bringing in a rock and turning it into a crystal goblet and filling it with water from the tap. Emma's eyes went wide at that and asked to see it, examining it closely.

"This is perfect," she murmured. "How did you do that?"

"We just focussed on what it was and what we wanted to change it into," Harry explained. "I noticed that when I included detail when picturing the result it would have that detail."

"This looks like a Waterford piece, how did you manage that?" she pressed.

"The Dursleys had a set like that," he said. "They got it out to impress guests, so I dusted it enough I could recreate it perfectly. Do you like it?"

"I love it," she said.

"I hope you're talking about me," Jason Granger said as he walked in.

"Sorry dear," Emma teased. "I've got a new love, sorry to break it to you."

"I knew it had to happen sometime," he said with a fake sight of disappointment, his eyes gave it away with the laughter lines.

"Seriously though, Harry and Hermione have been doing magic," she said. "Harry made this from a rock."

He did a double take when he saw the crystal goblet she was holding. "From a rock?"

"Yes," Hermione piped up. "I changed one of the garden gnomes into a vase," she said. "It changed back after a while though, but Harry's never did."

"Really? What else did you change?" he asked looking eager.

"We changed the garden bench into a bike," Harry said looking a little shy.

"Harry fell off it a lot," Hermione giggled.

"At least I didn't try to turn the swings into a column while I was swinging on them," he shot back sniggering.

"What about yesterday when you tried to change the bench's colour when you were still on it? Your but turned blue!"

Harry turned brick red and huffed annoyed while Hermione smirked triumphantly.

"You shouldn't smirk so much," he warned her. "It makes you look to cute to be taken seriously."

Bothe their parents did a double take at that comment before bursting out laughing at the looks on both kids faces.

"Was that out loud?" Harry asked tentatively. Jason and Emma nodded before laughing again. "Bury me now. Please?"

"To bad Harry," Jason said. "You just have to wait till we explain things to Sally's parents, then we can bury you."

After breakfast they explained how they went about transfiguration, what they felt when they did big ones and speculated on what made Harry's creations last longer. They put those theories into practice and after an hour of experimentation they discovered it was a combination of power put into the transfiguration and intent to make the change permanent. They also brought up the subject of the 'rivers' or maybe springs they thought might exist and made plans to go around various places and search for these rivers, starting with Stonehenge. Then as nine o'clock came round they turned the subject to different things that they could try; Emma got it going with suggesting something to make them invisible or make people not notice them. Hermione then followed with conjuring things, like food, water, fire or other things which would be useful, Harry came in with healing spells; having noticed that his injuries at the Dursleys were healed a lot faster than should be possible he was curious as to whether he could heal injuries almost instantly, fix broken bones quickly and that sort of thing. This one both their parents agreed to almost immediately with their only reservation on how they would practice and on a related note Jason proposed that they practice how to defend themselves with magic.

Emma was somewhat edgy as to whether they wanted the kids learning to fight with magic but Jason raised the point that they could also learn martial arts to defend themselves even if they didn't have magic; magic would just give them an edge, being able to attack without any way for their opponents to counter or defend against anything. With the grudging acceptance or Emma self defence was added to the list of things the kids will learn about magic on top of the normal classes in maths and such at school. Harry then put in if they could travel with magic, using a magic carpet or a broom, maybe even teleportation

Finally ten o'clock rolled in and they heard a car pulling into the drive and car doors slamming. Jason was already on his feet and in the hall by the time the doorbell rang and he invited all five of the Perks' inside. After pleasantries were exchanged, a pot of tea brought in, although instead of cups they brought in a few rocks, and snacks distributed and the youngest Perks brother placed in a high chair that his parents had brought the subject turned to the explanations.

"So you say that you have a good idea what is happening to our children?" Charles began.

"Yes," Emma replied. "It was Hermione really that figured it out thought." She gave Hermione a proud smile. "Put simply it's magic."

"Magic?" Sue said incredulously.

"Are you serious?" Charles demanded sounding mildly annoyed.

"Hermione?" Jason said gesturing at the table.

"Ok daddy," she looked the two disbelieving adults in the eye. "Look at the rocks on the table in front of you." After a quick glance at each other they obliged and were understandably shocked to see the small stones on the table transform in front of their eyes into a china tea set. Looking at the other places they saw Emma pouring tea into a china cup identical to the one in front of her.

"You'll need to drink fast though," Hermione said chagrined. "I haven't managed to make the transformation permanent like Harry yet."

Neither of the two adults could respond; they simply sat there with their mouths open until they were brought back to earth by their daughter's excited squeal.

"I can do magic!" she squealed excitedly.

"Yes we believe you can," Harry said looking happy to see Sally happy. "To start off you can just concentrate on making a small coloured ball of light appear in your hand. Like so," he extended his hand, palm facing up and a glowing green ball appeared out of nowhere in his palm. "The important part is to visualise it and let it flow, intent is the most important part."

Sally extended her hand and looked intensely at her palm for half a minute before Hermione spoke up.

"Don't try to force it at first Sal," she said gently. "It won't work that way; just let it flow. It can help if you close your eyes and just create a picture of what you want in your head, then repeat what you want in your head over and over."

This time she closed her eyes and relaxed a bit before, low and behold, a ball of red light appeared in her hand.

"That's it!" Hermione said excitedly. "You did it!"

Sally opened her eyes and squealed again at seeing the magic she had performed. When she did that the ball flickered and dimmed.

"Keep some part of your mind on keeping the spell going," Harry advised. "Can you feel you magic moving through you? It will probably be faint as that spell doesn't take much."

Sally closed her eyes again and seemed to be thinking about something.

"I can feel it," she whispered. "It's like a river of energy, flowing through me." She opened her eyes. "It feels _wonderful!" _

"It does doesn't it," Hermione smiled widely at her friend's acceptance of her gift.

At last Sue and Charles were able to speak, "So magic as really real?" Sue asked tentatively.

"It's real mummy," Sally gushed. "I can't wait to learn more! How much can you guys do? When did you start?"

"At the moment they've done colour change," Jason started. "Those light balls you saw, levitation and transfiguration. Hermione started the night before last, the same day you both started school here and Harry started the following afternoon on the way home.

"What exactly are you going to learn?" Charles asked. "Is it Jasongerous?"

"It's tiring, but not painful," Hermione said.

"Unless you decide to do some stupid things," Harry teased.

"Don't start on that again," Emma warned her two kids though she had a smile on her face as she said it. "We made a list of things we are hoping the kids will be able to learn," she handed over the list. "Can you think of anything else we might want to add?"

After a few minutes reading and thinking Sue asked, "I'm not sure about this magical combat."

"That would be simply self defence," Jason said. "We think that magic will give them an edge if someone without magic attacks them and are able to defend properly if they do have magic."

"I guess that would be a good thing," Charles admitted. "What about objects? In stories they used wands and staffs and stuff."

"We think those are useful but not vital," Emma said. "The kids obviously can go without but they could be used to focus the magic better."

They spent the rest of the morning and a large part of the afternoon discussing what they learned and working out a schedule for what their children would learn and how they would fit it around their schooling. In the mean time Harry and Hermione were in the back yard going through what they had learned and teaching Sally. They also tried some conjuring, starting with water, sending streams of liquid into a freshly dug pond. By the end of their session they were all exhausted but very pleased with themselves.

"Magic is tiring isn't it?" Sally commented as they trudged inside, soaked with sweat and water that had been shot at them by each other while playing around.

"Very," Harry agreed. "Once you get good enough at a spell though it's easy. Learning it is what takes so much out of you."

"Why is that?" she asked.

"You send magic everywhere while learning until you can focus it right," he replied before Hermione could start the lecture. "After that you just use enough to make the spell work."

"Thanks for teaching me," Sally said shyly.

"That's what friends are for," Harry and Hermione replied in sync. With a look at each other they began laughing.

Dumbledore was not in a good mood; he had spent two days trying to track down Harry Potter to no avail, he had asked his contacts with the ministry but they had no change in the magical signatures in the area, just a few muggleborns moving around, the goblins were as stubborn and unhelpful as ever and the muggle bureaucracy was as tedious as it was infuriating. His probes into the system to look into Harry's file were very slow and so far there was no listing of a hearing to deprive the Dursleys of their guardianship meaning Harry would be in limbo. He knew that having a basic knowledge of muggle law was a good thing and it was paying off, if only in showing him exactly where Harry wasn't.

_Where would he be? _Dumbledore mused as he paced his study. _He couldn't possibly be in a foster home, the Dursleys haven't had the hearing yet so he must be in an orphanage._ That particular thought sent a slight shudder through him. The last time he was dealing with a boy from an orphanage he ended up with Voldemort, although admittedly that was thanks to some subtle legilimency on his part. If Harry grew up there he would be much more independent than he could use, he needed him meek and looking at Dumbledore as a substitute grandfather/mentor. _Perhaps as a child witness he was given witness protection, the muggles have some strange ideas about that, so he could be anywhere under any name. _This would be a definite problem as it would mean that he would need to cross-reference details of people in that category before he could find him. Of course he could always nab him at the trial, a quick imperius, memory charm, curses on the area to negate ministry sensors and hey presto! In with a good family under compulsion charms and some good wards so the brat was what he needed. He sent a letter to his contact in the muggle legal system and sat back with a nice lemon drop. Life was back on track.

_ONE MONTH LATER _

Harry took a deep breath of the country air and knew that they were right. They were currently at Stonehenge and he could feel the magic, almost smell it, in the air around them. The only question was if it was an intersection or not. Over the past month they had spent many hours teaching themselves new things and exploring how magic worked. It was like a living entity, each of them likening it to a different thing. To Hermione it was air, flowing and giving life to other things changing yet still staying the same; to Sally it was water, for the same reasons though she thought of it as a cradle of life, not the source of life. To Harry it was like fire and as he believed that was the best analogy; it had almost a life of its own as did fire, it could give life or take it, it could spread if given enough stimulus and it was energy. He had found that he could sense and even _see _magic if he concentrated hard enough and it was that that had led to their knowledge of the magi lines as they called them. The rivers of magic he had seen one night when he concentrated always flowed in straight lines, he had followed one once after they had learned to be invisible. It was Hermione though that had come up with the idea of marking the lines on a map and they had quickly seen that a couple had converged on Stonehenge. That was what they were there to find out.

Closing his eyes he concentrated and willed himself to see the flows of magic and as he opened them he saw both what he expected and what he didn't. There were rivers here but they didn't quite intersect, they were running almost parallel to each other on either side of Stonehenge and a separate one intersected the two passing right under Stonehenge. The flows were strange; it was like when the two intersected they pulled some of the power of the others in and that all drained into Stonehenge.

"We were right and we were wrong," Harry said to his sister and friend.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked looking surprised. "Is there an intersection or not?"

"There are two but neither is at the ring itself," Harry said. "There are two almost parallel on either side and another line that runs under the ring that intersects both; it channels the power of the others as well as its own into the ring."

Both of his friends were surprised at that, "that was unexpected," Sally admitted as Emma walked over to the kids.

"So find what you were looking for?" she asked as curious as they were. She was delighted to find the kids so eager to learn about their world and their gifts.

"Sort of," Hermione said. "Apparently it's not an intersection under the ring but on either side with another one yet all three can feed into the ring."

"That is unexpected," she admitted. "Still we got the GPS coordinates for the other places, we could have a look at the stones themselves while we're here shouldn't we?"

"You're right," Harry said. "We could see if we could get an idea of what they actually do form the stones."

They all payed the admission and entered the exhibit itself, walking around the perimeter, gazing at the stones.

"I'm going invisible," Harry muttered to the girls. "I want to look at them close up." Both girls nodded and he faded out of view. The invisibility spell was something that he had worked hard to get right; it was one of the few spells where they had to work out exactly how they could become invisible. Hermione had proposed becoming something like a chameleon, changing to match its surroundings, Sally suggested being see-through though that was rejected after the first test had rendered Harry's hand completely useless while invisible. They had gone for the chameleon approach for a few days until Harry saw some information in a book about mirages, how they bent light to give an illusion of water while in fact you are seeing the sky. He then tried to bend light around him so he wouldn't be seen only to have the whole world turn black yet still able to hear and breath. They put the problem to Emma who proposed that as the light was going around him there was no light to make him see so he would need to work it so the light that was bent was replicated and shone in the right direction so he could see. This was slightly more draining than the chameleon approach to learn but was better camouflage and required less power to work.

He walked past the ropes that kept people away from the stones and walked into the ring. Immediately he felt the magic in the air change, where the magic outside was calm and peaceful, natural, inside there was a struggle of magics. The inner set of arches near the alter stone were channelling a force which the outer ones blocked, both systems were in turmoil, neither complete yet neither had failed. The inner stones were trying to stop something yet the outer ones were blocking that. Confused he looked at the stones themselves.

There were traces of magic on them, looking closer he saw the faint remains of life magic, the same sort of magic he saw in people and living things and it took him a minute to place exactly what is was; blood.

These stones had been painted with blood in the shapes of runes and, suppressing a shiver, he got out a pencil from his pocket and drew each and every rune he saw on the stones as well as a map of the stones themselves to show where each was from. He also marked the direction the blocking force was aimed at before stepping out of the rings and relaxing. The turmoil in that ring made him edgy. He rejoined his sister, mum and friend before surreptitiously making himself visible.

"I had a look and you wouldn't believe what was in there," he muttered to them.

When they finally got home the girls hounded Harry for information on what was there, he simply asked if the other adults could come to hear this as well. Once everyone was gathered Harry explained about the blood written runes on the stones, the battle between the two forces in the rings and the nature that he had felt of those forces. When he was done the adults were looking a bit wary about hearing him talk of stone circles waring, large scale magic use and blood magic while the Hermione was thinking about what they were doing. Hermione recommended trying to see where the force was headed and put the proper intersection on the maps, so they could see possible places they could look to see what the circle was originally for and they all agreed. Drawing them on they saw the three lines intersected at the same point, in addition to another line that was near to their house. Everyone was surprised and looking at the four lines except Hermione who was looking at the others. She then extended the lines that were drawn in other places before finding that no less than seven magi-lines all intersected at the same point, the point where the blocking force was aimed.

"I think we're going to the centre of London next," Harry said seeing where the lines intersected. 


	3. Angels Of Death

The next day Emma pulled Jason aside.

"Something about all this makes me uneasy," she said.

"I know what you mean," he said. "They're only seven and yet they're searching out magical places that use blood magic and have ancient spells that are blocked."

"And usually things are blocked for a reason," she agreed. "But what happens when the thing that is blocking is being blocked? Is the thing being blocked preventing bad or is it the thing that is blocking the blocker preventing bad?"

"Why don't you mull it over and take a walk around the block?" Jason asked amused.

"Prat," she said smacking him on the arm. "But what can we do about it?"

"I don't really think there is a lot we can do about it," he said with a sigh. "We could get them to stop their searching and so on but I really don't want to, part of me wants to know about this and another part wants the kids to find out as well. That and this is the happiest we've ever seen the kids, with a mystery to solve and their friends working with them."

"True but this could be dangerous," Emma said. "Harry said that the forces were strong and if things go wrong..." she trailed off looking apprehensive.

"True, but tell me this," he said looking in her eyes. "Could you go in there and tell the kids that they have to stop this?"

She thought for several seconds, seeing their devastated expressions in her mind's eye. "No."

"Neither could I," he admitted. "You know I've never been able to resist Hermione's puppy dog look. However we should try to make this as safe as possible."

"I don't think we can do anything about magic Jason," Emma said looking a bit gloomy.

"No but we can make sure that the kids can handle just about anything and can get away if they can't," he said. "We were going to teach the kids to fight with magic and that means defend themselves against harm. They could use that if things go wrong. We should also think about magical travel, teleporting and things like that."

"Do you think we could get Hermione to ride a broom?" Emma giggled. "That would be funny to watch."

"True," Jason chuckled. "It would make her look like a little witch."

"Not so little," Emma smiled. "Sometimes when I talk to her she sounds like a teenager or young adult, Harry too."

"Hermione's always been mature for her age," Jason said. "Harry, well..." he trailed off with a grim look on his face. "The only thing that happens if someone goes through torture is they break or go hard. Harry had to grow up fast to survive there; to be honest I'm surprised he opened up to Hermione so quickly."

"Those two are so sweet together," she said. "You just have to look at Harry's face or Hermione's when they look at each other when the other isn't looking. Harry practically worships Hermione and Hermione adores Harry, much more than siblings; if they were six or seven years older I'd be planning a wedding already."

"Those two are really good together," Jason agreed. "I can't believe I'm saying that about a potential guy for my seven year old girl."

"Did you adopt Harry or are we just his foster parents?" she asked.

"Foster parents," he said. "We could apply for permanent guardianship if we wanted."

"It would be awkward if we had adopted him," she said. "They wouldn't be allowed to be together. We won't push them but we won't stand in the way either," she shot Jason a look. "Will we?"

"No dear," Jason said contritely. "If they at least wait till they reach double figures. Before and we might have to try to tone them down a bit."

"Double figures," she agreed.

When silence once again settled on the married couple Emma spent some time pondering her kids (she felt a warm feeling at the thought of them being _her _kids because that was definitely what Harry had become) best friend Sally. She was quite shy and rarely spoke out among people that she didn't know but once you were one of the people that she did know then her true personality came to the fore; she was exceptionally quick witted with a casual sarcasm that was quite amusing when it wasn't being used on you. When it was it was infuriating but you still ended up seeing exactly why she was being sarcastic. She was also a very assured person with whatever she did, her first meeting with Harry was rather out of character for her, but she always seemed to have a knack for choosing where and when to be somewhere or do something. On more than one occasion Emma thought that she might have precognition and with the way the kids were exploring magic she had come to the conclusion that such a thing was far from far-fetched.

It was curious to her how all three of the kids were both alike and different; Hermione was studious, she would pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge and glory in it. Her greatest thrill was discovering something new and was the epitome of a scholar. Harry on the other hand was curious and inquisitive, but not studious. The distinction was slight but still there; where Hermione pursued knowledge indiscriminately, Harry looked for the mysteries around him and looked into them with a determination and enthusiasm that was both slightly alarming and awe inspiring. The way he pursued this mystery of Stonehenge and the magic there was a perfect case in point, he was in effect an adventurer, like one would expect to see in a movie; doggedly determined and always looking for the answers. Sally on the other hand was more looking at what was around her and how she could change it the make it more effective, or what new things she could make to do what was needed. In effect she was the perfect inventor and many of the ideas that they used for spells were hers originally or were changed by her to make them.

Together they were quite a team; Harry gave them a drive and purpose to get things done, and the power to do so, Hermione gave them the information and research skills to find what they need and allow them to do what they want. Finally Sally provided them with the ideas so they could do new things. Basically, Sally came up with what they could do, Hermione figured out how exactly to do it and Harry did it. All contributed to other places but they each had their own specialities.

Sally's brothers were both very curious about the magic Sally did around the house and adored Hermione and Harry when they came around. Sue and Charles as well as Emma and Jason sat down soon after the kids got back from Stonehenge and thrashed out what to do if the two boys were magical as well before finally settling on a solution. They would know about magic and when they reached seven they would start learning off of the other three in addition to their regular schooling.

Later that afternoon they informed the kids about their discussion and that they wanted them to start thinking up ideas for fighting spells, shields and ways of moving around by magic. Harry and Hermione both took it fairly seriously as did Sally when they told her, Charles and Sue's worries being soothed by Jason and Emma's reasoning and before long they had a list of spells that they wanted to try. The kids were given the ok for most of them to learn though some would need some preparation to practice (like the bone breaking spell). However both sets of parents told them on no uncertain terms that there was to be no practicing of combat spells without their direct permission first and their supervision.

Their first practice saw the kids lined up in the Grangers garden facing a large rock.

"Ok kids the first spell we are going to try is a spell to knock people out," Emma said. "We will just aim to knock the opponent out for half an hour or so. First off try to aim the spells at that rock and tell us if you have any issues."

It took five minutes for Harry to send a bolt of red light at the target, which left a small crater the size of a finger nail.

"I think you need to tone it down a fair bit Harry," Emma said. "I'm no expert but that would probably do some serious damage if it hit."

Harry's next bolt wasn't as bright as the first and left only a small scorch mark on the rock and was quickly joined by Hermione in getting off a shot which barely left a mark.

"That's good Hermione," Sue said. "How about you Sally?"

Quickly there were bolts from all three flying at the rock, all of them barely leaving a mark.

"That's good you three," Emma said with a smile. "Do you guys need a rest?"

"No thanks mum," Harry said happily. It had taken a while before Harry would consistently call Emma 'mum' but it never failed to make her feel happy when he did.

"Magic seems to be easier now," Hermione said. "Do you think it's like a muscle? If we flex it repeatedly it gets stronger?"

"Maybe," Harry said. "That would fit, but it could be that we are better able to focus our magic than before."

"There's that," Sally put in. "At first I could barely get off a stream of water before I was wiped out, now I've sent off at least a dozen spells without breaking a sweat."

"That's good guys," Sue said. "Good thinking and good work. Now we just need a target for the spells to see how they work on a living thing, something that isn't us."

"We could try to transfigure an animal," Hermione suggested. "Then it wouldn't really be an animal at all."

"Good idea Mione," Harry said with a smile at her.

"What did you call me?" she asked surprised.

"Um Mione," he said looking nervous. "I thought it would be a good nickname."

"It is Harry," she said smiling brilliantly at him. "I've just never had a nickname apart from mum and dad calling me 'sweetheart' and 'princess'."

"Thanks," he said with a crooked grin. Hermione grinned back.

With a wave of Harry's hand they had a large rat on a table, transfigured from a rock on the ground. He then hit it with a stunning spell and it was knocked flying against the fence and dropped quickly to the ground. All of them got closer to see the damage the spell did. On its fur there was a small patch that had been singed away and the skin was a bit red.

"I think you overdid it a bit there Harry," Sue said looking at the rat's fur. "Try to turn it down; Hermione your turn."

They continued like this for an hour, getting well practiced at sending off stunning spells before Sue suggested using both hands at once. This was much more challenging and they spent another half hour without much progress beyond using their hands one after another with Emma eventually calling a stop and sitting the frustrated and very sweaty kids down to try to think the spell through while Sue went to get cold drinks.

"We were trying but nothing happened," Hermione said frustrated. She looked extremely annoyed that this was something that she seemed to not be able to do.

"How were you doing it?" Sue asked. "What were you doing with your magic when you tried?"

"I tried to split the flow of magic that I feel when I do spells and send it to both hands," Harry said.

"I do the same," Hermione and Sally said together.

"Where do you feel it going wrong?" Emma asked.

"When it reaches my hands and I try to form the spell it just stops," Sally said looking as put out as the others.

Emma looked thoughtful for a few seconds before asking, "Do you think that maybe splitting the magic means that the spell is incomplete when it gets to your hands? That would explain things as the spell wouldn't be able to form if it is incomplete."

The kids looked at each other thoughtfully. "I think we should try that," Hermione said. "But how about we try something else like levitation to start with."

All three kids wanted to try levitation first after a rest and some food but Sue insisted that they get their non magical work done first. All three had decided to start studying ahead for their school work over the holidays and were considering home schooling rather than the public schools. The kids were obviously well above average and regular school would slow them down to make sure that they weren't going too fast for the less able students, so they were considering going into home schooling to make sure the kids were challenged effectively and could still work on their magical studies as well. With the extra bonus that they could get one tutor for the three of them they were leaning more towards homeschooling. After all they were homeschooling themselves with their magical training, why not in their non-magical training? They had sent out feelers into the system looking into the logistics of setting it up and providing tutors and had received several answers back that were promising. They would just have to wait and see...

Three months into the school year the kids had exceeded all expectations, both from their parents and tutors. All three had finished a good portion of the year's syllabus with high marks and had taken leaps and bounds in regards to their magical exploration. They could now cast spells at will with either hand and use both simultaneously as well as expanding their spell repertoire considerably, to include several shields of varying strengths and sizes and large numbers of attacking spells, that could distract, bind, incapacitate or even badly injure. Many of which came from Sally's creative mind though most were taken from fantasy games, books and movies. Some were adapted from other uses, like the drilling spell which they had used when Jason's drill broke or the blasting spell which they used to break apart some very stubborn rock when Emma wanted to put in a water feature with part of it underground. Each had their preferred style of casting and by extension fighting and they frequently pitted themselves against each other in friendly bouts. Hermione had a huge amount of spells she could send and was the best at dispelling whatever came her way while the range of different spells she could throw at her opponents was enough to throw them off and get a win. Harry had the most power and was brilliant at improvising; he was known to make up a brand new spell on the spot without ever practicing before, which led to him currently having the most wins. Sally was the great creator and often used spells in completely new ways, transfiguring a fly into a bed sheet over Hermione's head and dropping it on her, making the grass leap up and try to shove itself up Harry's nose. Each of the three were well matched.

These sparing matches were often tiring and sometimes went as long as half an hour, though there were almost no real injuries from these matches; the worst was when Hermione was hit with a tripping spell and fell awkwardly on her arm breaking it. Harry had quickly rushed forward and without really thinking fixed her arm with a quick pulse of magic. It was after this incident that they looked at healing with magic, treating cuts and bruises, curing illnesses and so on. While Harry was good in an emergency, they found that it was very difficult and only Sally was able to do larger injuries with any certainty, so they decided to only do small things like cuts and bruises and leave the rest to nature or Sally.

The other major thing they had mastered was teleporting, which they called warping. Emma was the source of this one, having read up on wormholes and the kids applied the principle to travelling. They could now transport themselves and one other passenger wherever they wanted. It was quick, silent and worked over great distances; Harry once travelled back from a trip to the south of France to get a camera that they had left. The only signal that it had happened was a slight bending of the light around the area when leaving or arriving. They now had a habit of warping to an alley across from the shops whenever they needed something, though only when their parents weren't watching. Sue had forbidden them from using warping to get everywhere citing the need for healthy exercise and so they had to walk to a lot of places.

It was warping that led to their really big spells coming out. They chose a place in the middle of the Himalayas, well away from civilisation and as barren as the surface of the moon where the kids could test spells that would have too big an effect to fit in their home or would do so much damage they wouldn't want it. It was in this area that Harry came into the fore, his obviously greater magical power enabled him to throw magic out to do things that frequently scared the life out of the adults and made them demand a promise from each of them to never come to that area without supervision on threat of serious grounding. It was there that they incorporated the elements into their magic; starting small with lighting candles, filling glasses of water and freezing them, making a mountain out of and into a molehill in the literal sense of the phrase and small gusts of wind before really releasing their power to see what they could do. It was Harry's firestorm and massed lighting strikes that elicited the previously mentioned promise.

Their time had not been spent entirely on work however, though a good portion of it had. They had spent some time playing with magic and had made up several fun games; aerial tag where they simply played tag with flying spells and tried to dodge around the obstacles in the garden. Splodge ball as it was called, where they created six balls of essentially play-dough and throw them around, was their favourite, as it combined three dimensions, loads of magic and plenty of running around and laughing. The other thing they did was magical art, where they made all sorts of weird and wonderful things with their magic. Magical pictures where the shapes, animals and other living things moved and interacted with each other and sometimes them, carvings from wood that acted alive and the wonderful light shows in a globe that the girls put together for Harry's birthday. Pride of place went to the gift Harry made for Hermione on her birthday though. It was a music box, with spaces for books to be shrunk and put in. The best bit wasn't the books though, it was the dozens of tiny crystal fairies glowing with internal lights that danced to the tunes played inside among tiny trees, ponds and fields. Taking the idea from Disney's Fantasia, he made the fairies dance to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and The Russian Dance by Tchaikovsky as well as In Your Dreams by Yoon-Ei Kim and Hermione's favourite, Caverns of the Heart by Fred Nachbaur. The sight of Hermione and their parent's speechless faces when she opened the box and the fairies danced through the air and the small landscape inside made everyone's day. Hermione was in tears by the end of it and they were treated to what was known in the families as a 'Hermy Hug', read: they were nearly crushed to death and had to be resuscitated.

Finally they were able to get enough time to go to London to find the epicentre of these magi lines that had occupied their magical world research for the past four months. They drove into the centre of London and rented a room in a motel for the weekend, planning on stopping only to drop off their bags before leaving again. This time the four adults had come as well, leaving Josh and Samuel with one of their friends for the weekend. It was when they were getting set to leave the hotel that it happened. Sally went rigid, her jaw hanging loose and her eyes went milky white, not iris, no pupil just white.

"Sally!" Hermione cried rushing over and placing her hands on Sally's shoulders, trying to look into her eyes. "Sally, are you Ok? SALLY!"

"What is-" Sue demanded as she rushed in with her husband, Emma and Jason before being cut off.

Sally spoke in a harsh hoarse voice that seemed to at once issue from her mouth and the air itself, leaving echoes even in the small room as though they stood on a mountain and were shouting to the valley below. "_The choice draws near,"_ she said. _"The Angels Of Death will come forward or turn away, one touched by death, another by sight, a third of sharpest mind. They can save the souls of the lost and release the power he knows not. They will collect the boon that denied the three brothers as children of fate and vanquish the Hallows. The dark lord will fall as will the lord of grey and the withering council of old. A new world will rise with peace for a thousand times a thousand years. The choice draws near for the Angels Of Death and Children Of Fate..."_

Her voice trailed off, before she jerked and her eyes changed back to their familiar blue and she said in her normal non-echoing voice, "sorry, dozed off are we going now?"

"Are you ok?" Sue asked anxiously, placing her hand on Sally's forehead and the sides of her neck.

"I'm fine, why?" she asked confused.

"You went all rigid," Harry said. "And began to speak in a strange voice and your magic changed. It looked different and felt... older and stronger," He paused. "It was like you were still there but something else was talking."

"Something else?" Sue asked her voice becoming high pitched and even more worried than before.

"Whatever it was it's gone," Harry said. "You don't feel any different?"

"No, but what did I... it say?" Sally asked.

"I wrote it down," Hermione said and showed her. "I think it sounded..." she hesitated for a moment.

"It sounded like what?" Jason pressed."

"Like a prediction or something," she said. "Like a prophecy or something like that. The wording is future tense, the outcome is not certain and there are vague words that can be interpreted in a different ways, depending on the situation; Children of Fate? Hallows? Souls of the Lost? They sound like terms that would be meaningful to some but not others."

There was silence as they all thought through that proposal. "I think she's right," Emma said. "It did sound like a prediction. Have you had any others like this?" she directed her question to Sally.

"A couple," she said hesitantly. "Just flickers, or glimpses a few seconds before something. Never this though."

"This is great," Charles said with the hint of a smile. "Our daughter is even more special than we could have imagined. You're a Seer." He gave her a hug.

After a few more minutes discussion on the wording and meaning of the prophecy they packed into the people mover, with Harry being given the front seat next to Charles so he could find some of the lines and hopefully follow them. Sue and Jason were with a GPS and a map to mark their positions when Harry spotted one to get a more accurate map of the area and the magical flows through it. In the space of an hour driving around they quickly were able to pinpoint the location of the intersections. It was when they parked the car and went to get lunch that Harry saw a building that was highly magical with the sign The Leaky Cauldron on it. He pointed this out to Hermione and Sally, but when he tried to tell the adults they all just looked right past it.

"It must be the magic on the building," Hermione reasoned. "They must not want it to be seen by anyone who doesn't have magic."

"They must do," Sally agreed. "So what do we do now?"

"We should get lunch first," Jason said. "We can discuss that over lunch."

After finding a nice restaurant and ordering their meals they settled down to their conversation.

"I think that we should find what we came to find," Harry said. "We came here to find where all these lines meet. I think we should find them and look around there, we can easily just walk into that place off the street if we wanted to, but we would need to warp into the place where the lines meet. The place is underground so we need to send a camera first to see if it is safe to go there."

"I'm with Harry," Hermione said and Sue and Jason nodded. "We should get some information on what we came for then go for the easy place later."

After a few minutes of discussion of the pros and cons of each they decided that they would go for the magi-centre as they called it first and come back to the Leaky Cauldron later. One nice meal later and a brief period of wandering around the shops to digest it, they stepped into a small laneway near the magi-centre and prepared a camera. It was a digital camera that they would send through a warp hole, let it take a picture and bring it back. They had tested doing this underground into solid rock or earth and got a smashed camera for their troubles at home, so the theory was they would get back either a wreck that told them there was nothing there or a picture of what was there. They had found early on that electronics and magic don't mix, so they got around this by making a small metal tube into the camera, pushing magic into it and making that power it. It was crude, draining to make and not the most reliable but in this case they only needed one picture that they could look at so it wasn't too bad.

One warp and an anxious wait later and the camera was back. "Did it work?" Hermione immediately asked.

Harry pressed the button for memory and they got a grainy picture on screen; a series of steps with a raised dais in the centre of the room. On that dais was a rough stone archway, with a shimmering veil, almost like it was made of wisps of smoke and semi translucent.

"It worked," Harry said. "From where I sent it that archway is dead centre of the intersection. That must be what this is all about."

"Ok take us down there then," Emma said.

"I think that Harry and I should go first alone," Hermione said. "No listen," she said when she saw that adults start to argue. "Harry and I can make ourselves invisible and warp back if there is trouble. If you were there we wouldn't be able to make you invisible and it would be harder to get out. We go ahead and make sure everything's clear, then come back for you."

"I don't want you going ahead alone," Emma said firmly. "We have given you a lot of freedom to decide with magical matters but we are not letting you go ahead into an unknown place alone."

"Dear," Jason said. "I feel the same way, but she _is_ right. If we go with them they will be in more danger from whatever could be in there than if they went alone. They will be gone only a few seconds, no more. Wont you," he looked sternly at Harry and Hermione.

"Yes dad," they said, looked at each other and disappeared in a shimmer in the air.

Approximately twenty metres ahead of them and fifty straight down, Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (DMLE for short) called Arthur Weasley into her office.

"You wanted to see me Director?" he asked.

"Yes I did," she replied. "I know you're in Muggle Artefacts at the moment, but from the reports it's been quiet hasn't it?"

"Very," Arthur confirmed.

"Then would you be able to take an assignment in Surrey? There appears to be a large amount of magic being performed in a couple of houses there over the past month but no witches or wizards are registered as being there, would you be able to check it out?"

"I should be able to," he replied carefully. "I just have a quick mission from the, ah, _Department, _that I need to do first in the middle of London, but I can go afterwards."

Amelia nodded; she was one of only a handful of people who knew that Arthur Weasley, as well as being a member of the DMLE was actually an Unspeakable working for the Department of Mysteries. He was looking into the intricacies of muggle technology and how they could use it and avoid the consequences of its use by muggles. He hid behind an 'obsession' with muggle things, while actually knowing more than most could dream about muggle science it was actually him that invented the Wizarding Wireless devices, as a parallel to the muggle radio at the beginning of his career. It was the closest the pureblood aristocracy would let their society get to muggle society while still going forward, so he didn't use the full breadth of innovation he could. He missed his old partner though; Lilly was simply a _genius _with technology. Being a muggleborns helped a lot but she still was going leaps and bounds ahead of what the rest were doing. Unfortunately her research was kept at her and her husband's ancestral home, under wards that prevented anyone not of Potter blood finding it without the permission of the head of the Potters or one of the family. As Harry was currently living with muggles there would be no access for some time yet.

His current mission though was from another area of the DoM, given to him because it was in muggle London. A prophecy had been made and it was his job to interview witnesses, gain a copy of the memories for the prophecy and obliviate those witnesses if they were not magical. He would then explain to the seer what happened to them and what was expected in future if they were around muggles and she made a prophecy. It was unlikely that whoever it was who made the prophecy knew they were a seer, so they would need to explain their responsibilities. A quick apparation to an alley near to the location and a transfiguration of his clothes to muggle attire and he walked towards the destination which he saw quickly was a motel. A quick notice-me-not charm and he walked through reception to a lift and after a moment's thought he selected the third floor. Walking down the hallway he cast a detection charm to pinpoint where the prophecy was made and a room showed up blue. He unlocked the door and went inside, looking through the bags left there to see if he could find who they were. The bags and belongings were those of children, around seven to nine years old, two girls and one boy.

Gaining no valuable information from the effects in the room he returned to reception and after a few compulsion charms got the details of the family or rather two families. Jason and Emma Granger and Charles and Susan Perks, in the middle of London for the weekend with two and one child each. _They must be good friends, _he thought to himself. He knew that they would be in the city seeing the sights, shopping and entertaining themselves, impossible to track down so he would return in the evening to talk to them. In the meantime he would go to those places in Surrey, he had the addresses and should be able to find the houses and see what is going on. A quick apparation later and he was again walking to his destination. Finally he reached the first home, a brick two story affair with a decent garden and a car in the driveway. He knocked on the door, to see if anyone answered and when no one did he cast the revealing charm which showed no humans in the house. An _alohomora _later and he was in the living room, looking at the pictures of the family, the parents, two sons and an older daughter. The next room, the dining room showed it to be a fairly ordinary muggle kitchen/dining room and scans showed only traces of magic on the surfaces. A few cups and a vase however showed themselves to have some good magical residue and when he inspected them he saw that they were permanent transfigurations. He noted the magical signature before looking over at the stairs and ascending.

He checked the parent's room first and discovered a wealth of information; the residents were Charles, Susan, Sally-Anne, Joshua and Samuel Perks. Charles was a Lawyer and Susan was a Nurse; Charles and Susan, the same names at the hotel. He looked at their address book next to the phone and saw with very little surprise that the first entry was for the Grangers home and the next for their office at a dental practice. He left for the next house quickly and when the charm was cast it detected traces of magic everywhere. The sinks, the table and chairs various items around the place. He picked up a camera on the table that seemed to be full of magic and quickly disassembled it. This time he was surprised; they had stored magic in a small tube and used it instead of a battery to power it.

"Ingenious," he murmured. They had only just started doing things like this in the DoM; he lifted it, took a picture and saw that it worked well. "Unbelievable."

He flicked through the pictures and stopped on one in particular; three kids flying through the air throwing small brown blobs at each other. "Impossible," he breathed. He put the camera in a pouch to take back to the ministry, both to study and show Amelia. He walked up the stairs and went into the kid's room first, the traces of magic in here were so many and so overlapped that it was like seeing a patchwork quilt over everything. One though stood out, a music box. On opening it his jaw dropped at the tiny dancing fairies in their groves and pools as the music played. He saw an engraving on it.

_To Hermione, happy birthday, hope you love this as much as I love living here with you_

_Harry._

He was tempted to take that back to show Amelia but decided not to, he couldn't bring himself to take such a lovely present away from a child, especially as it was clearly treasured.

The next point was the parent's room; and it confirmed that there was Hermione, James and Emma Granger, here but no record of Harry. Then he saw the file on the dresser. The first page nearly gave him a heart attack:

Department of Social Services

Name: Potter, Harry James

DOB: 31st of July 1980

Parents: James Charlus Potter and Lilly Potter nee Evans (Deceased)

Guardians to date: The Crown. Note: Guardians believed to be Mr Vernon Dursley and Mrs Petunia Dursley nee Evans, appropriate forms showed that they had never agreed to the guardianship (forms attached) and thus they had no legal guardianship. Guardians now being held for charges of abuse.

New Guardians: Mr Jason Granger and Mrs Emma Granger nee Johnson

Evaluation for guardians: Ideal, well known in positions of trust in the community. Financially capable of supporting new child. Psychological examinations show minimal risk of harm to an adopted child.

Adoption notes: Harry Potter was adopted by Mr and Mrs Granger at their specific request. Mr Potter became fast friends with the Grangers daughter Hermione and aided the police in bringing his abuse by his previously believed guardians to light. Mr Potter showed enthusiasm when adoption or guardianship with the Grangers was suggested in private.

Status: permanent guardianship granted, adoption declined by both guardians and children.

The signatures of the social workers Grangers and Harry followed and on looking at the forms for the Dursleys he saw Dumbledore's name and signature next to a blank entry for the Dursleys. A magical scan showed that there were traces in the blank space indicating that someone forged the signature magically. Next to that was a photo of presumably Harry and Hermione hugging each other and laughing. He could tell it was definitely the Boy Who Lived; he could see the famous scar on his forehead. He quickly duplicated the forms as well as the photo and left for the ministry.

On arriving he headed straight for Amelia, this was something that needed looking into. Dumbledore placing Harry with abusive relatives and possibly forging the papers to do so was big.

"Ah Arthur," Amelia said as he walked in. "Did you find out what was going on there?"

"Yes I did," he said grimly.

"What's wrong?" she asked quickly, picking up on his tone.

"There appears to be three muggleborns children in the area, well two actually. They have taught themselves magic and they are using it quite well.

"They taught themselves magic?" she asked in astonishment.

"Yes," he pulled out the camera. "They even managed to make an electrical device run of a crude magical battery of sorts. On it is a picture of the children playing with magic, showing incredible control and all without a wand."

She looked at the picture that clearly showed the children using magic. "Unbelievable," she murmured.

"Probably their best work was a music box they gave as a gift," Arthur continued. "I have never seen anything like it. They had dozens of animated fairies in a fully transfigured environment and a level of detail that would make the best transfiguration and charms masters proud. I didn't bring it though; I just couldn't steal a child's gift."

"You said there were two muggleborns," Amelia said. "Who is the third child?"

He handed her the picture and the adoption forms he had copied. She gasped.

"_Harry Potter!" _

"Yes," he replied. "But look at the adoption forms, both for the Grangers and the Dursleys."

"Child abuse," she growled upon looking through the first sheet and did a double take on the second.

"_Dumbledore did this_?" She breathed in shock.

"Yes and I saw evidence of magical tampering on the original form that they had. Dursley hadn't signed it so someone presumably altered the form so it looked like it. The charm then wore off over the years."

There was a sharp buzzing sound coming from Arthur's belt.

"Damn," he cursed. "What else could come up today?" he wondered out loud.

"What was that?" Amelia asked.

"Alarm, intruders in the Department of Mysteries, would you assist me? The other Unspeakables are out on assignments at the moment."

"Certainly."

Harry and Hermione appeared in the stone room in just a shimmer in the air. They were already invisible and immediately split up, searching around the room for anyone or anything. Harry used his magic sight and saw that they were indeed alone and there appeared to be nothing more than the archway.

"It's clear," Harry said. "We should go back and get the others."

She nodded and both disappeared. Reappearing in front of their parents they said, "It's clear, we can go in." Another shimmer and they were all standing in the room with the archway.

They all took a few seconds to look around the room.

"This is it?" Emma asked. "Doesn't look like much."

"Neither does the music box from the outside remember," Charles said. "We don't know what that thing does."

"Whatever it is it's using magic like you wouldn't believe," Harry said. "My firestorm would be like a drop in the river next to one of these lines and there are seven of them."

While he was talking he walked cautiously onto the dais. He stopped. "Can you hear them?" he asked.

"Hear what?" Hermione replied coming up behind him.

"There are people behind the veil," he said walking towards it slowly. "Can't you hear them?"

"I can," Jason said. "Can't the rest of you?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Let's try something before we go further," Charles said. "We throw something through the veil to see what happens to it when it comes out the other side."

Harry nodded and conjured a small rock and threw it through. Sally went round the back and said, "It didn't come through."

"Ok I don't think we should be going past that veil then," Hermione said.

Harry continued to walk around the dais and hesitantly touched the stone arch. There was a golden glow on the stone where he touched it which spread through the rock and runes lit up all over it.

"What did you do?" cried Sue all of them backing away from the arch.

The veil shimmered and became more solid, like liquid silver, and billowed out as if in a high wind. Then three people stepped through.

One was a young woman, her hair obviously red and her eyes were a vivid green and a gentle oval shape despite the ghostly smoke-like nature of her form. Her body was average size and willowy, while her arms and legs were still well muscled and shapely. On her face was a loving smile as she looked at Harry. The other was in constant flux; a woman, tall and unremarkable except for her eyes which were a silvery colour with no pupil or iris and were lit from within. One second she was old, others almost as young looking as a girl in her early teens, only her eyes stayed the same. The other was completely hidden in a vast black cloak, his features hidden and Hermione was immediately reminded of the Nazgul from Lord of the Rings. Only his glowing golden eyes and white teeth stretched in a grin where visible under his hood.

"Welcome," said the woman with green eyes.

"**Welcome**," said the woman with silver eyes.

"Welcome"said the hooded figure.

"Who are you?" James asked.

"I am Lilly Potter," said the woman with green eyes.

"Mum?" Harry asked softly, his eyes fixed on hers.

"Yes it's me darling," she said.

"And you two?" James pressed.

"**I am fate,"** the woman with silver eyes said.

"I am death,"the hooded figure said.

All of them took a step back at that pronouncement.

"**Do not be afraid,"** Fate said. **"We will not harm you. We come with a proposal."**

"What do you want with us?" Emma asked her voice audibly quavering.

"**It is not you but the children," **Fate said.** "They are the turning points; they are the ones who can restore the balance."**

"What balance?" Charles asked.

"Take a seat," Lilly said. "This could take a little while to explain."

Harry, Hermione and Sally quickly transfigured a few seats from the stone to sit on.

"This," Lilly began gesturing at the arch. "Is known as the Veil of Death; it is a gateway to the realm of the dead, once you go through you don't come back. In the olden times, before the roman conquest, this arch was the source of all spiritual summonings performed in the British isles; the spirits could be called forth and commune with the living before returning. However this changed when dark artefacts called Horcruxes were created."

"**These were abominations," **fate said. **"They were created when a person performed a ritual, involving the murder of an innocent person to split their soul and encase a portion of it in some object of creature. When these were first made, there were dozens of dark lords who used them. People did not know what they were though, apart from those who used them and because of the crimes they committed they were thrown through the veil."**

"The portion of the souls of those who passed through that went with them was sent into limbo,"Death said taking up the tale. "However the portions that remained earthbound had nothing to support or provide sustenance to. They then turned the rudimentary consciousnesses they had to making a new body of sorts for themselves. They were still bound by the nature of the Horcruxes though and they needed emotions, the energy of the soul to remain strong and keep living. They could also steal the soul of a person and gain the ability to breed and make more of their kind."

"The creatures are still around today," Lilly said. "They take the form of Dementors are used as guards for the wizarding prison Azkaban which is a hellish place."

"Why hasn't anyone gotten rid of them?" Hermione asked. "If they are so horrid why didn't anyone do anything?"

"The Dementors have an effect that forces a person to experience their worst memories," Lilly explained. "Few can fight when they are drowning in despair. In addition, those who did try to fight found that they were essentially immortal; it took an enormous amount of effort to destroy even one. The best that could be done would be to drive them away and there is a spell for that."

"**As the Dementors were essentially creatures of death they drew power from this veil and the land of the dead,"** Fate said. **"That is why there is, or was rather, a binder placed on the power of the veil many thousands of years ago."**

"Stonehenge," Harry said.

"Right," lily said taking up the tale. "But the Stonehenge as we know it today was created by a dark lord in the tenth century, he blocked the signal that limited the veil and used the Dementors as warriors in his battles. Even though he was defeated the Dementors still ran rampant across Europe for a century."

"Then came the three brothers,"Death said. "The three brothers Peverell. They, like you came before the veil and I gave them a task; to contain the Dementors and bring stability, if only a temporary stability. They succeeded and they were granted gifts; but they were greedy. The first wanted a wand that could never be beaten in pitched battle, the only way to claim it was through trickery. I gave him a wand of elder wood and stone from the veil for the core. The second wanted a way to call people back from death. I gave him a stone that could bring back their spirits, much like the old rituals did. The third and wisest brother wanted a cloak that could conceal him from all his foes. I gave him his cloak, made from the stuff of the veil itself. The first brother boasted of his wand and killed a man who he disliked though that night he was killed in his sleep and the wand was stolen. The second called back the soul of a woman he loved but had died. As she was not in the physical world and was greatly pained by her presence in the world, the second brother took his own life to join her. The third used his cloak well, protecting his family and himself until he died of age."

"This tale was changed into a children's story, called The Three Brothers," Lilly said. "The objects themselves still exist; in fact, Harry is the rightful owner of one: the cloak."

"Really?" Harry asked eager to learn anything about his original family.

"**Yes," **Fate said. **"But we do not come here to simply tell you tales of the past; we come to ask for your service, in return for a reward. The souls taken by the Dementors are still intact and whole, they are merely trapped and in torment. The mission we have for you is simple: destroy the Dementors, every single one, collect the souls that are released and bring them here so they can pass on."**

Silence greeted this statement before Sue eventually spoke up. "Do we have a choice?"

"**Of course you do," **Fate replied. **"I believe you heard the prophecy? '**_**The choice draws near'. **_**You are free to refuse if you truly want to."**

"I would advise that you take it," Lilly said. "My husband and I were murdered by a dark lord who styles himself lord Voldemort. That same dark lord tried to kill Harry but the magic I invoked when I died caused his curse to rebound, giving you that scar. Voldemort was not killed though; his Horcruxes anchored him to this earth as they were made to do. He can and will return, but this will give you the power to destroy him forever for he is sure to come for you once he is back."

"**We will help you in other ways," **fate said. **"We will give you the means to hunt down and destroy the Dementors. Then once the task is done both death and I will grant you a boon from our areas. I will give you a bond of love with your soul mate that is beyond anything a person could imagine. You will be joined to your partner mind body and soul for all time in this world and the next."**

While they all sat stunned at that pronouncement Death took his cue.

"I will keep you in this world for a thousand years, you will have true immortality while you are here and you will not age beyond twenty till those thousand years are up, then you will be just as if you were a normal twenty year old. You will still be able to have children during this time. Do you accept these terms?"

"Can we think about this?" Emma asked.

"**Of course," **Fate said with a gentle smile. **"But be quick, we will not be alone for long."**

The four adults and three children retreated to the stone steps of the room.

"What do you think about this?" Charles asked.

"My first instinct is that this is all cock and bull," Emma said frankly. "But there are some things that make this seem genuine; their appearances for one, the story fits and there don't seem to be holes. The only point of contention is that it is patently ludicrous."

"They were definitely being of magic, not living things," Harry said. "I could feel that and 'Death' had the same magic as the veil does."

"It's true," Jason said his face slightly sad.

"How do you know?" Sue asked with her arms around Sally who still looked a bit freaked out by all the events, but then again they all did.

"When they police searched Harry's aunt and uncles for evidence they found some old photos and letters, still in their envelopes, unopened. One of these photos was of Harry the day he was born. He looks exactly like his father and she," he gestured to Lilly who sat smiling at Harry on the dais. "Is exactly the same as Harry's mum."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Harry cried out. "Why didn't you show me?"

"I didn't want to bring up any painful memories, you had just gotten out of that place and we were all looking into magic and it just all got forgotten. I'm sorry Harry; I didn't mean to hurt you. You can have them all as soon as we get home if you want."

Slightly mollified Harry nodded while Emma shot her husband a look that men all over dreaded; a look that said plainly _we will speak later and you are in for it._

"What about that prophecy Sally made this morning?" Hermione said. "That supports this whole thing; Harry was hit by a deadly curse as a child, 'touched by death'. Sally can see the future; she is 'touched by sight'. And me well..." she trailed off with a blush.

"Yes we all know that you are 'of sharpest mind'," Harry said amused and Hermione's blush deepened.

"We would be the angels of death coming to collect lost souls," Hermione continued. "We would be children of fate in our boons and how we can defeat this Voldemort person with her help, as well as some grey lord and an old council, whatever that may be. It all fits and the only way they could know about it would be if they really _are _Fate and Death and so on."

"I think we should do it," Emma said. "The benefits far outweigh the detriments and let's face it; love beyond imagining and immortality for a millennium? That plus help with magic, a chance to free thousands of innocent people and make a permanent mark on human kind? If even half of that is true it's a great deal. We just need to know how we gather the souls of those taken and where to sign."

"Do it," Harry said.

"Do it," Hermione and Sally.

"Yes," Charles said.

"Go for it," Jason said.

"Yes," Sue said.

"So we are agreed; unless something horrific pops up when we need to gather those peoples souls we take the deal."

Everyone nodded.

They walked up to the dais, their thoughts on the future and what it held.

"**You have reached your decision then," **fate said.

"We have once we clarify some things," Emma said taking the lead. "How do we gather the souls of those lost and for that matter how do we destroy these Dementors?"

"With this,"Death said pulling a small black ball from his robes. "This is a soul stone. It will destroy the soul piece that is the Dementor and once the souls are free it will hold them until you send them on through here. If their bodies are still alive you can communicate with those souls and return them to their bodies and lives. Do heed this warning though; not all the souls that were taken were those of innocents nor is your success in this task assured. There are still obstacles in your way and you will still be mortal until the task is complete. Remember that once a person passes on they cannot come back. The Dementors kiss as it is known has been used on the worst criminals for several centuries. Expect some souls to be the lowest of human kind."He placed the globe in Harry's hands and Harry looked at it in awe and wonder.

"So do we sign anything or something to agree?" Sue asked.

"**Place your hands on this scroll," **fate told them producing a scroll with the terms on it. **"While they are on there, state your name and that you agree to the terms. You adults place your hands over you children's hands and state that you agree that your children will undertake this mission and the rewards they will get at the end. You may read through it all you like."**

All the adults looked through the scroll and saw that it was indeed set out like many contracts they had seen before and it clearly stated that it was an agreement between Fate, Death and three mortal children, with their parents also in agreement. It stated the deal for immortality and the bond of soul mates plus the assistance with the first two to come into effect once the Dementors were no more and the assistance to begin immediately.

They each placed their hands on the scroll and stated what they needed to. There was a flash of magic and the deal was done.

"**All is well," **Fate said.

"Your first step is to go to the wizarding commercial centre, Diagon Alley," lily said. "I will be your link as I want Harry to succeed so I will provide the assistance as Deaths agent. There is a bank by the name of Gringots there where the Potter heritage is kept. It is currently being controlled by one Albus Dumbledore, the grey lord from the prophecy. You need to have our will read and get his wrinkled old hands out of the Potter vaults and get his magical guardianship revoked and passed to someone we can trust. When you are there you can get books on magic to help you with new spell ideas, potions, runes and arithmancy. When you are done there you need to go to a Pyramid in Egypt and recover the materials of your staffs. Once you are done that it will be up to you."

"Thank you mum," Harry said with tears in his eyes.

"I would do more if I could love," she said looking like she too would be crying if it were possible. "Be brave, keep going and love your family. They won't lead you wrong." She looked up at Emma and James as well as Sue and Charles. "Look after these kids; all three of them but keep you other kids in mind as well. Just love them and don't stop ever."

"We will." They all chorused.

"And so we bid you farewell,"Death said and all three turned and sank slowly through the veil. The Perks and Grangers all shimmered into the air as their guests departed and just after the door burst open leaving Arthur and Amelia staring at the slightly billowing veil and the last shimmers that showed the people were ever there.

A/N

Soz about the long wait. If anyone is interested in the music mentioned they are available from . You just need to have noteworthy composer or viewer which can be downloaded from the site.


	4. The names Bones, Amelia Bones

Seeing the shimmer that was all that they could see of the intruders Amelia and Arthur fired a volley of stunners, blanketing the area with red beams of light. Advancing with their wands raised they heard no signs of people moving nor of any unconscious bodies hitting the floor.

"You did just see those shimmers right?" Arthur asked after ten seconds of silence and nothing.

"Yes," Amelia said. "Looked exactly like a disillusionment charm, but we covered that whole area and there were no shields, no hits and no way they could have dodged the lot of them. They must have gone."

"The question is how," Arthur mused. "This place has anti apparation and Portkey wards and I can tell they are still up. Whatever they used it was something new."

"What is this place and why would they be here?" Amelia asked, lowering her wand slightly and moving towards the dais.

"This is the room of death," Arthur replied. "Some of us study the magic of death, both in necromancy and the process itself, trying to unravel the secrets of whatever lies beyond. If they were dark wizards they would probably be looking at the makeup of such a powerful object that is steeped in death magic, if they were light, who knows? Whatever they wanted here it definitely involved the veil."

He walked over to the veil and began muttering spells and tapping different runes on it.

"I thought you worked in muggle technology?" Amelia asked curious.

"All Unspeakables are versed in the ways of the devices here, if only in their basic function," Arthur said distractedly. Then he paled. "Merlins beard," he breathed with a look of shock in his face.

"What is it," Amelia asked sharply stepping forward.

"According to this three beings went through the veil," Arthur said. "And they didn't come from our side."

"You mean..." she whispered in shock, her face draining of colour as well.

"Yes, someone from the other side returned to this world," he said. "Fortunately about twenty minutes later those same three went back. Exactly who or what we will need to ask of the people they met, as the veil activated about two minutes after the warning was sounded."

Amelia began moving her wand in complex patterns, muttering under her breath. When she was done she took out a flat piece of metal, the size of the cover of a book and placed it on the ground where they had seen the shimmers. After a glow and a few seconds a piece of parchment appeared in mid air which she took and looked over.

"The magical signatures are not like anyone's I've seen before," she said and handed it to Arthur. "Does it look familiar?"

He took it and froze. "Yes I have," he said and pulled another two sheets from his pocket. "The families that I visited earlier today; the Grangers, Perks' and Harry Potter. The signatures match those I got there when I did my scans. But what on earth are they doing here? How did they find it and how did they get in?"

"Those are good questions," Amelia said. "And we will need good answers. I will come with you to the hotel they are staying at; this has taken top priority now. They have a way to breach the best protections we can build, unnatural control over their abilities for children so young and witnessed or conversed with entities from beyond our world. Without any training or knowledge of our world and laws they could expose us to muggles or worse. You and I will track them as far as we need."

"How on earth can three kids somehow manage to pull in three alerts from the ministry in the same day and we simply pin them down in one spot?" Arthur wondered out loud.

...

In a laneway a hundred meters away from the two, Harry, Hermione, Sally and their parents reappeared right where they had disappeared less than half an hour before with the usual shimmer in the air. After getting their bearings they agreed to go back to the hotel to debate their next move. On the drive there, all three children were silent, pondering the task they had before them and the rewards promised. Harry in particular was eager for the soul bond they were offered; he had recently found what love was and seeing how happy everyone was when they felt it so the chance for all three of them to have a bond of love for someone beyond imagining was intoxicating. To him immortality would just give them more time to enjoy it. Unknown to him, most of the others were thinking the same way, though their parents were also thinking of the dangers that they would be able to be safe from once they had the power that they would get.

Finally they reached the hotel and trooped upstairs to their rooms, converging on Harry, Sally and Hermione's suite which was the largest. There the kids sat on their beds while the adults pulled up chairs while they talked.

"So after all that what do you guys think we should do from here?" Charles began.

"I think we should go to that Diagon Alley place," Harry said. "That's what mum said we should do."

"But where is it?" Sally asked. "She never said where it is did she? Do you think we should go back and ask?"

"I don't think so," Jason said. "Though you are right that she didn't tell us. Which leaves us with the same question; what now?"

No one seemed to have an answer at first before Hermione's face brightened.

"There was that pub we saw remember? That magical one you guys couldn't see?"

There were gasps from Harry and Sally as they remembered. "We could go there and ask for directions," Sally said.

"Nice one Mione," Harry said with a smile.

"Well we were planning to go there anyway so why not?" Emma said before getting a sly grin on her face. "From the sounds of it though we might need to buy some books."

Everyone laughed at the squeal of happiness from Hermione at that followed by what could be described as a small hurricane as she ran around the room checking that she had enough room in her suitcases for the new library she planned on getting. After a few minutes of this Emma calmed her down and they were on their way. The quick drive to a car park and the walk to the Leaky Cauldron seemed to take a lot longer for the kids; in fact the entire day had seemed to go on for so long and yet it was only two o'clock by the time they reached their destination.

The kids had to hold their parents hands and lead them through the door for them to see the entrance and once inside they were treated to a scene that seemed to come straight from a medieval era movie; a classic pub with a wooden bar, tables and chairs, a large fireplace with a wood fire burning and candles lighting the interior. It was also obviously magical; the people appearing in said fireplace in a rush of green flames, the pointy hats and robes and the fact the candles were hovering unsupported in midair were something of a giveaway. Threading their way carefully between the tables and patrons they made their way to the bar and the proprietor. Harry looked around and saw almost everything had magic in it; the chairs, candles, fireplace, cups, bar and people. The people had the same look, a glow of power in their chests swirling up to their minds and down their hands to wands that they held. It was a contrast to the dull background sort of glow that Harry saw in normal people.

"Excuse me," Emma asked politely. "Could you tell us the way to Diagon Alley?"

"Ah, new to magic are you?" the toothless barkeeper asked kindly. "The entrance is just through here, I'll show you in. The name's Tom by the way." With that he led the way out a door on the far side to the entrance which led to a small stone courtyard with a single dustbin in it. "You simply tap the brick that's two up and three across from the top of the dust bin lid three times," he explained as he pulled out a small stick that had to be his wand. Before he could do anything with it though Sally had tapped the required brick with her finger and the bricks began to shift.

Tom looked at Sally with a surprised expression on his face. "You know I never thought of just using your finger to tap it, I always thought you needed a wand." He looked a bit sheepish before shrugging and said. "Well you learn something new every day don't you? Anyway welcome to Diagon Alley. Fare well!" and with that he left to go back to his bar.

All seven of the party were gobsmacked by the sights of the alley; a long cobbled street that stretched at least three hundred metres away from them, lined with old Victorian era shop fronts. It looked like a cross between a market and a Victorian style main business district. Shops sprawled into the streets with their wares outside and inside. Some were merely stalls in the middle of the street; some were converted houses with the bottom floor the shop and living quarters above. The largest building was a large white marble with golden letters above spelling GRINGOTS, its iron doors wide open and a steady stream of witches and wizards walked in and out.

They set off down the street taking in the sights and sounds of the alley and were trying to decide where to stop first until Sue pointed out a problem.

"All the shops here have prices listed in Galleons Sickles and Knuts," she said. "We must need to exchange money or something before we can buy anything here."

At this Hermione and to a lesser extent Harry's faces fell, their desire to explore the magical world, buy magical things and books (especially books) evident from their disappointment. Sally looked a bit frustrated but seemed to take it in her stride a bit better than Harry and Hermione. So it was by necessity that Gringots became their first stop.

"I wander how they guard the money and stuff in there," Jason wondered out loud.

"Probably enchantments or magical guards," Harry said as they began up the marble steps.

"Well from that poem they seem to not like thieves at all," Sally said pointing out the poem written above the door.

_Enter stranger but take heed _

_Of what awaits the sin of greed_

_For those who take but do not earn_

_Must pay most dearly in their turn_

_If you seek beneath our floors_

_A treasure that was never yours_

_Thief, you have been warned beware_

_Of finding more than treasure there_

(J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone)

"Of course they don't this _is _a bank," Hermione said.

"What are those," Harry whispered as they entered the building, looking at the short, pointy featured greyish green figures who appeared to be employed by the bank.

"From their appearance I'd say goblins," Hermione replied also in a whisper. "They fit the descriptions of goblins from all the stories I read but we'd need to get a book on magical creatures to tell for sure."

Together they walked towards a counter where a free goblin (?) was stacking paperwork.

"Hello, I would like to look at exchanging non magical money for magical," Jason said politely to the goblin whose plaque on the desk read Riptooth. "I would also like to enquire about the reading of the will for one of my charges parents."

"Of course," he replied. "And who were the parents whose will you wish to execute?"

"Mr James and Mrs Lilly Potter," Jason said. Riptooth looked up at him warily and looked over the kids before stopping on Harry, his eyes going to the scar on his forehead.

"I believe those wills were sealed by order of the Wizengamont," he said.

"Is there any way to unseal them?" Emma asked.

"I will look at the stipulations in that act and refer you to a lawyer in the employ of the Potter estate," he said hopping off his stool and walking into a back room. Five minutes later he returned with a middle-aged man holding a stack of parchment.

"My name is Nathan Stenpike," the man said. "You are Mr and Mrs Dursley are you?"

"No," said Dan looking confused and a little disgusted at being mistaken for those people,

Riptooth and Nathans faces both turned stony. "I'm afraid that I can only speak to Mr Potter himself or his guardian," Nathan said.

"We are his guardians," Jason told them.

"Our records have Mr Vernon and Mrs Petunia Dursley as Harry Potters Muggle guardians," Nathan said. "So unless you can prove otherwise we can do no business here."

"Muggle?" Hermione asked.

"Non-Magical," he clarified.

Jason frowned, "We don't have them on us at the moment. However," he looked at Harry and Hermione. "Could you two get those forms? They are on our dresser in our room, bring the whole file." They both nodded and quickly walked out the building.

"While we wait though, we would also like to discuss opening an account for ourselves," Charles said. "And one for our kids as well."

"I'm afraid that ministry edicts prohibit non-magical persons from holding an account," Riptooth said. He paused for a second leaned forward and continued in a low voice, "But the ministry has no laws on underage accounts being opened for muggle born children, nor restrictions on who uses those accounts," he finished with a smile and a conspiratorial wink.

"I like how you think Riptooth," Jason said with a grin before he noticed Harry and Hermione coming in. "Ah here we are."

Jason quickly handed the files to Stenpike who looked over them briefly and confirmed that the documents were acceptable before inviting them to his office. Once everyone was seated he began.

"Now the will and testament of Lord James and Lady Lilly Potter was sealed on the fifth of November, 1981. The terms of its unsealing were that when Mr Harry Potter reached his majority and/or were emancipated, or if while underage, Mr Potters Non-Magical guardians were to attend and request it. As such I have unsealed to will and we can read the contents in a preliminary reading immediately as the primary beneficiary, Mr Potter is present. Are you ready to hear the contents of the will?"

"Yes we are," Jason said.

"And is there anyone here who you wish to remove from the room before the reading commences?"

"No," Jason replied.

"Very well, Riptooth would you kindly show Griphook in?" Stenpike asked looking past them to Riptooth who opened the door and showed another goblin in holding a large ornate scroll before withdrawing himself. "This is Griphook the Potters account manager. He handles investments and makes necessary provisions to keep the estate running," there was much shaking of hands all round before everyone sat once more.

"And so we shall begin;

"I Lord Sir James Charlus Potter (KRT) and Lady Lilly Evans Potter (KRT) do herby declare this to be our last will and testament as written in an acknowledged time of magical warfare. All previous wills for either party are declared null and void, be they written in times of peace or not."

Here Stenpike paused. "The following two paragraphs are not relevant as they are provisions for the circumstances of the death of one of the individuals without the death of the other.

"Resuming; in the event of both of our deaths occurring, custody of our child, Mr Harry Potter, should fall to the following people, prioritised in order of appearance from most favourable to least:

Lord Sirius Orion Black, Godfather, Head of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black.

Lady Alice Longbotom, Godmother,

Mr Remus John Lupin

Madam Amelia Bones, head Auror

Professor Minerva McGonagall

Should all the above be unable or unwilling, custody is to be given to a known moderate magical family and they must undertake questioning under the influence of Veritaserum to ensure no ill intent or leanings nor any association with the Dark Lord known as Lord Voldemort or his followers, known as Death eaters.

Under no circumstances whatsoever should he be given to Ms Petunia Dursley nee Evans, Harry's Aunt as she is known to abhor magic in all shapes and forms.

"If a guardian is assigned when Harry is over the age of seven, he/she must have Harry's personal approval before guardianship can be awarded.

"The guardian is to ensure that Harry is given a muggle education and to integrate him in muggle society. It is our wish that he be at home in both worlds.

"The guardian assigned is forbidden from entering into any marriage contracts with any person before Harry reaches the age of thirteen, nor are they permitted to enter into such a contract beyond that age without his consent.

"The guardian is allowed a monthly amount of three hundred galleons from the Potter Estate vault, for use in accommodating his living and other expenses. Gringots account manager Griphook or his successors may demand and are entitled to receive documentation to show that such amounts are used for Harry's welfare and expenses. Harry's Trust vault will be under the control of the guardian, though no more than 1000 galleons may be withdrawn in any calendar year, not including Hogwarts or other tuition or school supplies. Harry is to be given a monthly allowance of: ten galleons, up to the age of eight, twenty galleons up to the age of eleven, forty galleons up to the age of fifteen and one hundred galleons up to the age of seventeen.

"At the point Harry reaches his majority he is to be given the title of Lord Potter and take his place as Head of the Most Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter with all rights, responsibilities and privileges of his station. At such time he is to be given full unrestricted access to all Potter Holdings, Vaults, Magics and Properties. Should Harry be emancipated before his majority, he is to be considered having reached his majority though must employ a permanent advisor until he reaches the age of 17. From the Age of thirteen Harry may be emancipated with his consent and the consent of his guardians, or on the death of those guardians in a time of war," he paused again.

"Here ends the portion of the will pertaining to Mr Potter, Shall I continue to the other bequests?"

"Yes," Jason said once he had found his voice again; all these shocks and Harry was a lord? He didn't know how much a galleon was in Pounds sterling but he guessed it was a bit.

"Very well;

"First to Lord Sirius Black, Padfoot my dear friend, take 20,000 galleons and my son Harry, train him as the next generation of marauders and make us proud. I expect to meet on the other side of the veil laughing at his pranks.

"Second to Mr Remus Lupin, Mooney, my friend, take 20,000 galleons and use it. Get a haircut, some decent robes and get yourself a girl. There is also an allowance with the apothecary to brew Wolfsbane potion for your furry little problem.

"Third to Professor Minerva McGonagall, Minnie, thank you for your help in bringing out Prongs and Padfoot. Take 5000 galleons and buy yourself a case of Ogden's finest, you deserve it for putting up with our pranks at school.

"Fourth to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we leave 30,000 galleons to be placed in a slow growth fund to pay for the purchase and maintenance of the quidditch pitch and school brooms; all should have the chance to fly on a decent broom.

"Fifth to Albus Dumbledore, I leave thirty sickles and a book on the Nobles and their Fates. Change your ways or the people will do it for you.

"Sixth to the Department of Magical Law enforcement; 50 000 galleons to be placed in a fund to aid in training and properly equipping the aurors. With the way the world is you need all the help you can get.

"Finally to Peter Pettigrew, should we die while under the protection of the Fidelius: Wormy you live up to your form as a rat. Take thirty sickles and a book called the bible and deliver them to us past the veil.

"This concludes the initial reading of the will."

There was silence as everyone took in what had been read. Eventually Stenpike spoke again.

"Was there anything else that you needed explaining from this will or in legal matters?" he asked.

"What are galleons and sickles and how much are they in pounds?" Emma asked.

"A galleon is a gold piece worth £103.87 pounds at this moment in time, though that rate is quite steady," Griphook answered in a gravelly voice. "A sickle is a silver piece with seventeen sickles to the galleon, thus a sickle is worth £6.11."

"Thirty pieces of silver," Jason muttered.

"Yes," Stenpike said. "I'm not exactly sure why that was put in there, could you shed some light on it?"

"Giving someone thirty pieces of silver in a will," Emma started, and then paused. "What is the Fidelius?"

"I take it you are completely new to the wizarding world?' Stenpike asked. When they nodded he continued. "The Fidelius charm is a powerful piece of magic that places a piece of information under protection such that unless that information is disclosed by a single person, known as the secret keeper, it can never be known and any who know it will forget immediately upon the spell being cast. The Potters were hiding from He Who Must Not Be Named with their location under the Fidelius; as long as their secret keeper remained silent, they could never be found."

"And so the secret keeper betrayed them," Jason stated. "That explained the thirty sickles for Peter what's-his-name."

"How so?" Griphook asked.

"Thirty sickles is a reference to the bible," Emma explained. "Judas betrayed Jesus to death for the reward of thirty silver pieces. Giving Peter thirty silver sickles and a bible would be accusing him of betraying them to their deaths."

"But the secret keeper was Black," Stenpike said confused. "He killed Pettigrew and a dozen muggles, Peter named him just before as the secret keeper and so did Dumbledore, he's been in Azkaban ever since."

"It seems the will states otherwise," Jason said. "What can we do about it?"

"Well I can look into the trial of Sirius Black and see what came up," Stenpike replied. "In the mean time, we need to look into who placed Harry in the care of his aunt and uncle; Albus Dumbledore had stated that Mr Potter was safe there, obviously that was not the case."

"The guardianship form for the Dursleys had the signature of a Dumbledore on there," Hermione piped up. "They would probably be the same person wouldn't they?"

Griphook quickly got the sheet of paper out of the file and looked over it. "Yes this is the signature of Albus Dumbledore, which is bad. He was listed as a witness as well as Alice Longbottom, so he knowingly violated the wishes of the parents."

"How could he not notice the gifts to him though?" Charles spoke up. "He would see that they didn't trust him, so why would they have him named as a traitor?"

"In a wizarding will the parchment is charmed so any witnesses can't see the parts pertaining to themselves until the will is officially read," Stenpike explained. "It is a security measure so a witness cannot simply make up a will of his own and say that he received more or less than what was written, they would rely on the other witness to confirm or deny the bequests to other witnesses."

"Another question," Harry asked. "Why didn't this Longbottom woman try to find me? She knew that I shouldn't have gone there."

"Alice Longbottom and her husband Frank were attacked less than forty eight hours after the Potters," Stenpike replied. "Her and her husband were tortured into insanity by the Death Eaters and are still in a semi-catatonic state to this day."

"Oh god," Emma breathed in shock and horror. Everyone else had the same emotions written on their faces.

"In regards to the guardianship," Griphook said. "Our records list Dumbledore as Mr Potters Magical guardian. This will be rectified as of now and a new guardian appointed from the list in the will."

"Will that mean I can't stay at home?" Harry asked looking stricken.

"As long as the magical guardian consents to it, you may stay with the Grangers, though they will retain muggle guardianship," Griphook said and Stenpike nodded in agreement. "Otherwise they would still have visiting rights as long as they are not proven to be a threat to you or your magical guardian."

"So who will it be?" Jason asked. "From the sounds of it Black and Longbottom are out as one's in prison and the other is incapacitated, so the next is Lupine right?"

"Lupin and yes he is the next on the list," Stenpike admitted. "However the ministry would likely object as he is a known lycan and recent laws prohibit a lycan from having custody of a child."

"What's a Lycan?" Sally asked.

"A werewolf," Griphook answered bluntly. Everyone's eyes widened.

"Ok so who is next?"

"Amelia Bones," Stenpike said. "She would be a good choice; even if Black got out of Azkaban he would most likely be insane after six years in that place and with the others out she is the best option. The ministry couldn't put in any complaint as she is the head of the DMLE."

"DMLE?" Charles asked blankly.

"Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Stenpike said. "I can contact her immediately." With that he wrote on a piece of parchment and tapped it with his wand making it fold into a paper plane and soar out the door. "It will be a while before she arrives, if you would like to discuss banking matters with Griphook would that be acceptable?"

"I have no problems, is that all right with you Griphook?" Jason said.

"My job is to oversee the potter accounts and provide assistance, I am always available," he replied.

"Then could we have a review of the current status of the Potter estate?" Jason asked moving on taking that as a yes.

"As it is the Potter holdings are quite substantial," Griphook began. "Being among our oldest customers they have currently six vaults; the first is Mr Potters trust vault, currently standing at ten thousand galleons, with a slow growth plan via secure holdings and interest with returns approximately six percent per annum. Second is the family spending account, currently at 250,000 galleons, with an aggressive growth plan yielding approximately 12-15 percent per annum."

The Grangers and Perks' mouths dropped as their minds began to comprehend the wealth that Harry's family had while Griphook continued his recitation.

"Third is the Potters Long term vault, standing at approximately 3,070,000 galleons, with a slow growth plan, returning approximately four to five percent per annum. The fourth is the investment vault, with shares in more than ninety businesses and a majority share in six: Quality Quidditch Supplies, a magical store here in Diagon Alley, The Three Broomsticks, a tavern in Hogsmead, Cretchman Pharmaceuticals, a muggle medical business, Potter Magical Creatures, a wildlife farm and sanctuary in an unknown location in the British isles and is particularly noteworthy as the Potter estate is the only share holder, Zonkos joke shop, a chain of businesses in many countries and finally Marigold, a muggle food supplier. Currently the returns on all investments total some 2.6 million galleons per annum, before tax and expenses. The fifth is the potter family vault, containing some two hundred million galleons and several dozen priceless artefacts of unknown value or being literally priceless.

"The final vault has always been open to the potters but hasn't been claimed since the sixteen hundreds, the Gryffindor vault. Contained within are several Hundred thousand galleons, used to support the growth and maintenance of the school, grounds and valley of Hogsmead as well as the Hogwarts Research Division land and properties. This hasn't been claimed as the Potters decided to not take advantage of the vault as it would draw attention to the family and attract reporters, unless they needed to change things at Hogwarts. This vault has been earning steady returns and has had all accounts paid on time and correctly.

"The property of the Potters is in good condition with the grounds and buildings being maintained by the staff of house elves, some one hundred and thirty nine in number. The properties you own are; shops 17 through 43 and one through four here in Diagon Alley, Potter manor hidden in the welsh country side, two manors in Scotland and England, a villa in the South of France, a small house and the surrounding island in the Indonesian archipelago and a large house and island near Hawaii.

"All in all the Potter holdings are in good stead with the wealth growing and no recent deficits in profit. The total revenue for the last quarter, not including the Gryffindor holdings, was approximately 700,000 galleons, with expenses being taxes of some fifteen percent and approximately 200,000 galleons in expenses from the estates. All in all a total of exactly 486,525 galleons, 4 sickles and 2 Knuts profit for the previous quarter."

After several seconds digesting this Jason finally asked, "And you are the one supervising all the holdings I take it?"

"Yes that is my duty as holder of the Potter accounts."

"Well then I suppose just keep doing what you have been and it all should be fine," Jason said, trying to sound as though this was something he was used to and almost succeeded; almost.

"I certainly shall," Griphook replied smoothly. "I suppose that you wish to withdraw some funds for your afternoons shopping and the expenses at this time?"

"Yes, we will take," he paused and thought for a second before continuing. "Fifty galleons from the expenses amount. I take it that books about the wizarding world and magic in general would be covered under that?"

"As Mr Potter has not been raised in this world yes," Griphook answered.

"What are the house elves?" Hermione asked while the others nodded in agreement curious about the answer.

"House elves are the servants of the house," he answered. "You can find more in the bookstore Flourish and Blots."

"How will we find the properties they are at?" Emma asked curious.

"Calling the head elf, Twinkie, will allow her to find you and show you the properties," Griphook replied. "And would you like to withdraw the allowance for Mr Potter as well?"

"Yes thank you," Harry said eagerly causing the others to snicker indulgently.

"Very well then," the goblin said, reaching under the table and picking up two small money bags. "This is the fifty galleons requested," placing one in front of Jason. "And the ten galleon allowance," placing the smaller bag in front of Harry who immediately took out the ten galleons and gave three each to Hermione and Sally.

"Now you have something to buy some books or a set of magical pencils to draw with," he said with a smile which both girls returned along with a hug.

"You also mentioned you wished to set up a vault for the other two?" Griphook continued with a sly grin.

"Yes we were," Sue said smirking. "We would like to have them set up so that they would have restricted access, no more than ten galleons a month unless we sign for it and we as their parents have full access."

"Certainly, there is an initial two sickle set up fee and any conversions from muggle money attract a fee of .5% per transaction, with a minimum deposit of one galleon. I must advise you though that we do not have to facilities to use muggle computer transaction methods. We can only use muggle cash."

All four adults got out their wallets and counted up how much cash they had, before eventually exchanging £640 between them for four galleons, 36 sickles and six Knuts and they deposited a galleon in each vault. Just as they were finishing up Stenpike came back in.

"I have contacted Madam Bones however she is on a high priority mission for the ministry and so cannot come in at this time," he said. "We will contact you to tell you when you are able to meet in person here for the finalisation of the will and guardianship."

"When will the will be read?" Sue asked.

"I have set the time of the reading for eleven on the fifteenth, one week from now is that agreeable?" he asked.

"Yes that's fine thank you very much," Jason said and the kids chorused their thanks as well.

"You're welcome, though before you do your shopping just note that it is illegal to sell or buy a wand before you are 11 years of age. Potions and other magic that doesn't use a wand are fine but no wands. If you have any questions in legal matters feel free to contact me here at Gringots, good day," and with that he walked out.

It took several minutes to fill out the remaining paperwork from the vaults but they were quickly finished and headed out to spend some money. Their first shop was the book shop to buy books on as many subjects as they could much to Hermione's pleasure. Inside they found that it wasn't very crowded and the books were grouped by subject with only a very small fiction section near the front. One particular section was marked Hogwarts and was divided into sections by year level. The first thing they noticed was that the books in that section were all text books, detailing levels of the different subjects. Most subjects were obvious, like transfiguration and potions but others like arithmancy and Quidditch were incomprehensible to them. The other thing they noticed was all of them were expensive, the most expensive being thirteen sickles each, and the least was eight.

"Why would a book cost so much?" Harry asked confused.

"I'd guess the research and stuff that went into making it," Sue said flicking through a book on magical theory. "This one is definitely a good one to get," she said holding onto it.

"So is this one," Hermione said holding out a book on charms for first year. "And this," she said pushing a book on potions into her hands before hurrying off to look at other stacks of books.

"We never took you shopping for books with Hermione did we?" Jason asked shaking his head in amusement. When both sue and Charles responded in the negative he chuckled. "This is why; she always loses herself when she is buying books, half the time is spent picking them out and the other half is trying to put back ones that we don't really need. Just watch she will come back with enough to make you think she should be a weight lifter."

After a few minutes and a couple of books on curses and other subjects from Harry and Sally, Hermione came back bent almost double under a pile of books about half her size.

"Hermione!" Harry said exasperated and levitated most of the books out of her arms and onto the floor. "You don't need that much and if you did you don't have to carry all of them! Remember we have magic for that."

She blushed and nodded. "But we do need these! There is so much we don't know and so many books that have what we need, we should get them because we might need them and we could-"

"It's your turn dad," Harry said to Jason cutting Hermione off.

"But-"

"It is," Emma said firmly. "I did it last time. Come on Harry, we should look over here for more." And with that she took him by the hand and pulled Harry over to books that talked about runes and something called arithmancy.

"What was that about?" Sue asked baffled while Hermione huffed at being cut off by her friend.

"We take turns in persuading Hermione to put the books back," Jason said rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "It gives the others time to shop. I swear they cheat and make me do it all the time."

"Hey!" Hermione said pouting.

"Come on then Sally," Sue and Charles said together, taking her hands and pulling her after Harry and Emma. "We need to find some stuff as well."

Two hours and twenty books later they convened at the counter, ready to pay for their books. Hermione looked a bit put out but satisfied with the books they let her keep; charms and transfiguration up to second year (They made her put back the ones for the other five years) Defence against the Dark Arts books for first to third years as well as a couple of other books on magical creatures and the Dark arts (low level of course, they don't want anything worse). They also let her keep a couple of books on magical law and culture, admitting that they needed to know those and there might be some good information to be had. Finally they had the books on history, detailing the past five hundred years and the various major events during that time.

Harry had picked up five books; one on runes and one on arithmancy that supposedly covered the third through fifth year syllabus in those subjects. He got them mainly for Hermione as he knew she would love them and she was busy arguing about what she already got. One on a sport called quidditch that he was curious about and one on two on potions detailing second year potions and ingredients reactions. Sally got four books and a writing set, two books were on divination and seers, one was on magical creatures and another on Hogwarts itself. Seventeen galleons later and several shrinking spells cast by the clerk, they left the store.

Their next stop was the apothecary, purchasing several potion making kits and a variety of other ingredients that weren't in the standard kit. After that they went to the wizarding equipment shop, Kizels, where they bought rune carving equipment (Harry pointed out there wasn't much point in runes if you can't carve them,) a cauldron for obvious reasons and a series of magical gloves, protective gear and a couple of telescopes and lunar charts for those things that needed them.

The final store they went into was Quality Quidditch supplies, because all of them were excited about getting a broom and being 'a real witch/wizard'. They thought they really weren't complete without one, that and it would be awesome to fly on one. Inside was very much like any sporting store though there was a definite sense of being crossed with a car sales yard or electronic games store given the way the young wizards drooled over the different brooms on display. Comments about the "new nimbus 1000!" and other phrases about acceleration, cornering, top speeds etc sounding very familiar to the seven newcomers to this world. Hermione predictably went straight for a shelf of books at the back of the store while the others browsed. Before long they were approached by a salesman and asked about a broom for everyday use that would be easy for beginners but still useful afterwards. After looking over a Comet 200, Cleansweep 5 and silver arrow, they decided on the Cleansweep and two Comets which used up twelve galleons (5 G 11 S for the Cleansweep and 3G 3S for the Comets). With the broom shopping done, (Hermione getting a book on how to fly for which they were all thankful) they set off for their hotel.

The drive home was once again quiet, with Jason only complaining about the parking ticket they got, ("Two minutes over! How the bloody hell-" "Language!" – "Sorry dear, could they actually measure that? He was making that up!) With all of them too tired from their day to make conversation. They stopped off at a McDonalds to pick up dinner to eat at their hotel, not wanting to bother with anything fancier before converging on the kids' room again to eat. It was a quiet meal with only small bouts of conversation coming up before they had a quick rest, relaxing after the long day. Finally it was Sally who broke the silence.

"Mum could we get one of my books on Seers? I want to see what it says about prophecies."

"That is a reasonable idea," Sue agreed. "Grab it and we can read it together."

After fishing it out of the bag and re-sizing the book, they sat down to read.

"_The subject of divination has been studied for millennia, by witches and wizards in all corners of the world." _Sally began. _"The discipline is concerned primarily with the divining of future events by certain individuals who are separated into three classes; Oracles, who foretell minor events and hazards in a semi purposeful manor. Prophets, who have no gift of sight apart from one or more Prophecy's made, and Seers, who have the qualities of both. Each uses different methods of harnessing their gift. The ways in which a person might harness their gift are detailed in this text, which shows the most common ways. Readers should always note that although the gift for divining the future is in all of us, few are capable of making predictions with any sort of accuracy and consistency."_

"Well that was interesting," Hermione said. "From those descriptions you are a Seer then, should we look at the parts on Seers?"

"I agree with Hermione," Harry said and the adults all nodded their agreement.

"Ok then," Sally said flicking through the book till she came to the right section.

"_Seers are the most powerful and well respected of those who possess the gift of second sight. The prophecy's they make are often fulfilled, are made more frequently than a prophet and are able to harness their ability to see more mundane events with much more clarity and with less preparation. This gift is also a curse in many ways, for the events that they see and can prevent are still real for them. Additionally they were, until the 19__th__ century with Sighted Protection Laws, often imprisoned by powerful people for their own use, forced to make predictions to the advantage of whoever it was who held them under threat of torture or worse."_

By the end of this sentence Sally's voice was shaking; reading about what her fate could have been and had been for others like her. The only comfort she had was that there were apparently laws to protect her from such things.

"Sally honey," Sue said gently. "We can stop if you want."

"No," she said composing herself. "We can just skip to the other bits, this seems to be just a rundown of the things that Seers can do better, if we read about oracles and prophets we can understand Seers."

"Is there a section about prophecy's themselves?" Jason asked. "I'm curious about the intricacies of them, how they work, types and limits that sort of thing."

"Ok then," Sally said and flicked ahead again.

"_Prophecies as they are, made by Prophets and Seers, are the most powerful of the types of prediction that can be made. They are formed by the ripples in magic formed from future events that travel around the timeline, before converging on a place and time that gives them meaning and are always made in the company of another. There is some debate as to whether the ripples are targeted to a place where the prophecy can be brought about, by being heard, self fulfilling to some extent. A prophecy is easy to recognise when given; the prophet or seer goes rigid and unresponsive and their eyes usually change, turning black, milky white or some other unusual colour without pupils or iris'. The voice with which the prophecy is made is also distinct; harsh and hoarse, with an infusion of magic in the words that can be felt even by muggles, as we know from several witness accounts where muggles heard a prophecy being made. _

_Within the category of Prophecies there are four classes based on two factors; the first factor is the presence of choice in the prophecy, some require a choice on the part of a person or persons, some don't. The other factor is certainty, with some having an outcome that is uncertain and not based solely on one choice but rather giving several options and others being certain, the events will be occurring regardless of the actions of the people who know of it or those who don't._

_While the class system is rigid there each is really something of a misnomer, with the class being given by only a few sentences with most of the prophecy being certain with the exception of the specific sentences. Interpretation of a prophecy is often a difficult business; the wording of the prophecy almost always has many meanings that are not known until after the fact. The prophecy's are also somewhat cryptic; in Selway's famous prophecy of the black plague, the plague was referred to as 'a hand of black (that shall) settle on the land,' and the cure was only found in 'the line of the hunter, the new and the set, in the table of Artemis.' Which meant the cure would be found at the site of the temple of Artemis at the alignment of the constellation of Orion, the new moon and the sun having set."_

"Who on earth could have figured that one out?" Charles wondered out loud.

"So what happened was definitely a prophecy?" Harry half asked half stated.

"Seems like it," Sue said. "I wonder-" she began before being interrupted by knocking on the door.

"Who on earth is that?" Jason asked as they all looked at the door.

Harry looked at it and used his magical sight to see how many were behind the door and who they were. He had made a list of people they usually saw and the distinct look their magic had. He knew his parents, Sally's family and his two friends best, the librarian and tutor less and the neighbours and other people around in passing. The two people he saw/felt outside were both unknown and they were both magical.

"They're magical," Harry said quietly and they all looked at him with mild surprise.

Then Jason just shrugged and answered the door. Outside were two people, a man, slightly above average height, with a kindly face that was at the moment very serious looking and a bald spot in his otherwise fairly vivid red hair. The woman was about average, with a monocle, reddish brown hair and a severe, no-nonsense sort of face. Both wore black robes though the woman had an insignia on her left breast pocket, above her heart, with a circle, a wand and a set of scales with MoM underneath.

"Good evening, I am Amelia bones and this is Arthur, I presume you are Jason Granger?" the witch asked.

...

Arthur and Amelia had both headed off for the hotel that the Grangers, Potter and Perks' were staying as soon as they could, arriving within ten minutes of their entry into the room of death in the DoM. They immediately went to the rooms and found them empty, though thankfully the suitcases and everything were still there. After a brief talk they decided Arthur would stay behind and watch for the return of the Potter, Grangers and Perks' while Amelia would head to the Underage Magic Office and see if the trace had picked out their location. As she walked through the various corridors and spaces of the ministry, Amelia pondered the mystery of the Potters; she had known James before he went to Hogwarts, their parents being friends had made sure of that. The one thing that she could never fathom was how they could be capable of causing chaos at every turn and yet still turn out some of the best and most loyal people she had ever met. James' father was the same as James and so was his father before him according to her parents. And so here was Harry potter, turning out chaos at every turn and having the head of the DMLE and an unspeakable running around like headless chickens trying to track him down. Her internal monologue was cut short when she realised that she was just about to reach her destination.

"Oh!" said the witch who was in there. Her name was Anna-Lee Seebourne, a newly hired muggleborns just out of Hogwarts. She had graduated with seven NEWTs and all at Exceeds expectations or higher and was poised to climb the ladder in the DMLE. Or so she thought; being muggleborn meant that she was perhaps destined for a low level career as a regular officer, possibly an auror if she really excelled second time she applied as her first having already been rejected. This was one of the things that Amelia loathed about her job: the people who were worth so much more than what they were assigned to. Anna was one of the best charms mistresses in her generation and had been tutored by Flitwick personally in her NEWT years. Yet here she was, relegated to a crummy desk job and the worst thing was that it was Amelia who had been forced to put her there. She had to uphold the laws and the law was that she must do her job according to the ministries policies. And the policy in this case was that muggleborns and mixed race persons were excluded from anything third tier and above. That meant clerk or desk work, filing and other menial labour that the 'important' people couldn't be bothered doing.

Amelia always tried to help the young men and women like her, within the rules of course. Flexibility with days off and leave, tweaking the monthly pay and not giving them really poor jobs. The best and brightest were the ones that she really was able to help. That part started when she had been having a few drinks with Arthur after work. Arthur was one of her favourite employees; she had considered him a bright man with an enthusiasm for muggles that was amusing at times and exasperating at others. Yet there had always been something that triggered her Auror sense as she called it; her intuition told her something wasn't as it seemed with him. His intellect and fondness didn't match up with his ambitions and position; being pureblood and well liked he could have been heading up a major department and helping his family out of their financial difficulties. Those same difficulties were strange too, with the pay Arthur was getting and the size of their family they should be flat broke and yet there always seemed to be enough to get them by.

During those drinks her tongue had loosened enough to say what she thought about the muggleborns in the DMLE and not just there but throughout the ministry. He had proposed a solution where he would refer the best to some people he knew who would make thing better for them. She agreed and soon after she voiced her suspicions about him. It was then that she learned that Arthur was an unspeakable, a top secret researcher in the Department of Mysteries working on muggle technology. The eccentric muggle loving image he cultivated was somewhat exaggerated, (he truly did love muggle tech) but it gave him an excuse to always be tinkering and it helped get his family by. In fact they had quite a bit saved up in their secret vault that his DoM pay went into.

Ever since then Amelia had made recommendations for the best and brightest of those who were disadvantaged by their birth to Arthur and through him the DoM. She thanked Merlin that the DoM didn't seem to be particularly fussed about blood status and many of those she recommended ended up leaving the ministry and getting a better job in an unspecified location doing unspecified (or unspeakable as she sometimes joked to herself) things.

After her quick excursion into her thoughts she addressed the witch she had interrupted while painting her nails. "Ah Anna, how are you this afternoon?"

"Very well director," she said looking a bit embarrassed. "What can I do for you?"

"I am looking into an underage wizard and two witches who are causing a few problems we need to look into. The problem is we can't find them, so I thought that I might look in here and see if you have anything from the Trace."

Anna turned to the instruments and flicked her wand causing more than a hundred panes of glass to form up in a grid that showed the outline of the whole of the British Isles. After a brief second marvelling at the charms work Anna displayed in making the map appear in perfect order she heard Anna asking, "Do you know where exactly they were?"

"London and the surrounding suburbs, mainly Surrey."

Another flick and the relevant panes floated forward slightly while the rest flew back to their shelves.

"There are quite a few of them in the London area, but not many in Surrey," she said. "There aren't any known witches and wizards in Surrey, only one Squib, though we have been getting a few pre-Hogwarts flares in the area," she pointed at one particular plate and an area was highlighted. "I passed that report to you earlier today."

"It is that report we are chasing up," she said. "Can you detect any traces from those people?"

"Sorry gov'," she said. "We can detect a trace alert, even a pre-Hogwarts one but there isn't any way to work in magical signatures. The only reason I forwarded that one was there wasn't supposed to be anyone there and it had been going on for a while."

"Ok then, I know they are in the centre of London, right near the entrance to Diagon Alley and the Ministry, can you get the trace notifications for there for the past four hours?"

"Sure," she pulled out the correct pane and expanded it so it was the size of a decent sized wall across the office before setting the time and getting the screen rolling. There were quite a few spurts in one particular area and she pointed at it, "That's the 'cauldron," she said and with a wave a series of arithmantic formulae appeared. "We are getting floo and lots of cleaning, levitation repair and other household spells from there but that is normal, people taking their kids to Diagon Alley.

"Those there," she pointed to occasional flares and other formulae appeared, all looking almost identical. "Are apparation signatures. This plate is frequently active but not much apart from those areas. There was a strange one this morning that I had no idea about but I got a message from higher up saying not to worry." She showed Amelia a note that she recognised as being from one of the Unspeakables.

They watched the plate play for a few more minutes before a strange series popped up well away from the cauldron, with the time signature saying it was around an hour after they started, at half ten, when a continuous flare moved across the screen towards the Leaky Cauldron, paused for a minute before moving away and eventually disappearing.

"What on earth was that?" Amelia asked.

Anna flicked her wand again and looked at the equations, "Impossible." She murmured.

"What is it?" Amelia asked her. "I'm not too good with arithmancy."

"I'm good but even I don't understand this," Anna replied. "This is way too complex and there are things I've never seen before. What I was talking about was this," she pointed to a section at the front. "That is the wand signature section."

"I thought that was part of the spell?" she asked.

"It is, but the thing is that there should be a wand signature there. There isn't which I see all the time with accidental magic, but this is continuous and highly complex. That means this is deliberate, but they aren't using a wand."

Amelia nodded, "That's them. Keep going."

Anna opened her mouth to argue but a look told her not to and she just kept the pane showing its flares. An hour on the screen passed before the same flare appeared again; this time they watched as the flare moved towards an alley then disappeared again. Seconds later there were two flashes on the screen, lasting just a few seconds. Without prompting Anna rewound the screen and took readings.

"There it is again," she said. "No wand but this is deliberate and I don't have a clue what that is either."

"Transportation," Amelia said. "Two appeared in different locations at the same time. So that's how they did it."

"Did what?" she asked when a letter flew through the open door and into the room landing on Amelia's shoulder. She opened the letter and sighed, before scribbling a reply while muttering to herself angrily and sending the letter away. She just couldn't believe that Gringots wanted her as well; and what the devil for? They would have to wait though; this took priority.

"Keep it going," she instructed and Anna reluctantly obeyed.

She wasn't stupid, far from it. She knew that something big was going on if the boss was running around on her own and refusing to tell her why she had to put all her efforts into reviewing things; she had even seen a warning that underage magic had been done while watching the screens but her boss had made her ignore it. That was what made her suspicious.

"Do you remember when I tried to figure out these things and broke one on Ms Hopkirks head?" she asked conversationally while surreptitiously turning her wand to Amelia.

"No," Amelia said puzzled. "When was that? I'm sure I would have heard the report somewhere."

Anna just sat there silently and quickly sent off a 'Finite' with no visible effects.

"What was that?" Amelia snapped at her.

"You were acting odd," Anna explained. "I was making sure you weren't an imposter or under a compulsion charm. I mean you come in here and seem to be trying very hard to track down some kids and not acting yourself, it seems very suspicious."

"Very well then," she said.

The next twenty minutes of recorded time went by quickly before finally another group of flares in the same locations went off and they kept watching up to the present.

"That's all," Anna said.

"Ok then," Amelia said with a sigh. "Not many answers, but some. Oh and Anna," she said just as she was about to go out.

"Yes boss?"

"None of this ever happened."

"Yes boss."

Just as Amelia was about to head back to the office a messenger patronus arrived from Arthur.

"_They're here."_


	5. Wild Goose Chase

"_Good evening, I am Amelia bones and this is Arthur, I presume you are Jason Granger?" the witch asked._

"You would be correct, Madam Bones," Jason said, causing Amelia's eyebrows to rise slightly when he stated her common title. "I didn't think that you would be available for some time and that we would meet in Gringots, but it seems I was mistaken."

"I'm sorry but what do you mean?" she asked confused.

"You were sent a message by Gringots to meet us," he explained. "I take it that your mission for the ministry is complete?"

Amelia just stood silent for a second before starting to chuckle, "To think," she said. "We've been at this all day and yet we were invited to meet you in the middle of it all."

"Sorry?" Jason said puzzled.

"May we come in?" Arthur spoke up. "I don't think this is the best discussion to have in a doorway."

"Of course," Jason replied stepping out of the way to let them walk in.

After introductions were made Emma asked the all important question; "What is it that has the head of the DMLE and a secret agent tracking us down all day?"

"Three things actually," Arthur said. "First the prophecy made here this morning-"

"How do you know about that," Charles interrupted.

"The Department of Mysteries has methods to detect prophecies," Arthur answered. "They often contain critical information on major events so they need to be studied, both in their content and the fulfilment or lack there-of."

"The next was a large amount of magic being performed at your residence," Amelia continued. "Technically that is in my department but I gave it to Arthur as he was available. He noticed that your names matched the names in the records at the hotel."

"That and the place looked like it was coated in magic," Arthur put in. "The furniture, crockery, just about everything showed some trace. Then there were the magical devices you had made, ingenious to say the least! I took a few back to show Amelia and for further study. That music box really is something else."

All three kids looked livid at this and their parents were obviously very upset.

"YOU STOLE MY MUSIC BOX?" Hermione screeched as the air around them thickened with magic.

"No I left that one," Arthur put in hastily. "I just took that camera that was on the table."

Harry looked at Hermione's distressed face and vanished with a slight shimmer that startled Arthur and Amelia.

"How-?" she started before Harry reappeared with the music box in hand.

"Here it is Mione, he was telling the truth," he said with a gentle smile.

She took it and relaxed, blushing slightly at her reaction.

"That was the final part that got our attention," Amelia said. "That method of transport; or more accurately where you went using it this morning."

"What are you talking about?" Jason asked deciding to play dumb for the time being.

"Just after I got back from your houses the wards in the Chamber of Death in the Department tripped showing unauthorised intruders," Arthur said matter-of-factly. "The problem was that there was no sign of entry from the door and the anti- apparition and –portkey wards were still up and showed no sign of any breach. Then analysis of the chamber itself showed that three beings had passed through the Veil of Death in that room from the other side before returning just before we arrived. When we arrived we saw the tell-tale sign of your unique mode of travel, that strange shimmer in the air, and readings taken showed your magical signatures as the source of the magic in the room."

"Checking the Trace readings on magic," Amelia took up again. "I also saw trace signatures showing your magical transportation that showed you going into the room just before whoever or whatever came through the veil. We have little knowledge of what is on the other side of the veil, so you must understand that we are extremely worried that the ones who witnessed and almost certainly communicated with those entities were three prodigious magical children and four muggles, all of whom have no knowledge of the workings of our world or most likely any idea of what was happening."

There was silence after the long list of different pieces that they had put together to get to where they were at the moment.

"I bet you were a bit annoyed that you had to track us down after all that when we invited you to meet halfway through and got turned down," Jason chuckled.

"Quite, but we need to know who or what came through the Veil and where you got your knowledge."

"Well," said Jason. "I suppose you are trustworthy. The three, well I suppose you could call them people, were Death, as in the personification, person or whatever Death; Fate and-"

"Me," said a voice as the soul stone glowed for a second and a six inch high projection of Lilly Potter appeared above it to many yelps and jumps from everyone gathered.

"Mum? How are you doing this?" Harry asked surprised and delighted.

"I said that I would help you," Lilly replied. "I can't do much if I stay on the other side. I can use this to talk to you and provide advice."

"Lilly?" Amelia gasped. "How?"

"The soul stone that Death gave them allows me to communicate with them," Lilly replied. "As long as they have it on them I can come through for a while and speak to them."

"How do we know you are Lilly Potter?" Arthur asked.

"Good question Ducky," she smirked.

Arthur blushed brilliantly. "That's her," he said.

"Ducky?" Amelia asked curious.

"You don't wanna know," Arthur grimaced.

"Oh when Arthur and I first joined the DoM Arthur was obsessed with rubber ducks," Lilly said giggling. "And I fed him the line that they were the pinnacle of muggle technology and were particularly useful in um," she paused looking at the kids. "_Married _encounters."

Amelia's jaw dropped before she burst out laughing.

"Then the silly prat decided to charm them to help, it was _hilarious_!"

"I don't get it," said Hermione looking confused and Harry and Sally nodded in agreement.

"We'll tell you when you're older," Jason said with a smirk.

"Ok can we move on to why we're here," Arthur said desperately, his face now approaching a vivid strawberry colour.

"True, we are here to investigate the happenings here," Amelia said trying to get her face back into its usual stern mask. "We know the 'what' about the Veil instance, now we need the why and how."

"The why is Death and Fate wanted to give them a mission," Lilly said.

"What sort of mission," Arthur and Amelia asked all signs of mirth vanishing.

"They need to restore the balance of life and death," Lilly replied. "Dementors; taking the souls they have upsets the balance of the universe and the laws of death try to take other souls to make up the loss. This creates more imbalance as they are gone before their time. That is why conflicts in the past century have become more and more bloody and also more frequent. Their mission is to destroy the Dementors, all of them, and collect the souls that they hold and sending them on. If the bodies of those kissed are still alive they can return them if they wish. Eventually the balance will be restored."

"That explains Death but why Fate as well?" Jason asked. "I was wandering why she got involved if it was Deaths problem."

"The people who died before their fated time are why," she explained. "It messes up her plans. James and I were two such people; we were supposed to guide Harry to make the world into a fantastic place and gradually assimilate muggle culture into magical, before slowly dissolving the Statute of Secrecy."

"Dissolve the Statute of Secrecy? Are you mad?" Amelia gasped.

"Muggles, or non-magicals as I prefer to call them," Lilly said. "Are far more open minded than earlier centuries. That and there are many advantages to magic that non-magical society would latch onto with both hands: cancer treatments and other medical things, all must be done using magic, both in plants and in people. Spin it the right way and get rid of the bigots and it would go fine. That however is all academic as it isn't going to work like that.

"Anyway, the important thing that you should know is that they will be getting rid of the Dementors permanently before or after getting rid of Voldemort."

"Wait why should our kids have to fight this Voldemort character?" Emma asked. "That contract you had us sign just covers getting rid of the Dementors, not a Dark Lord. That is for the police or army to deal with not a bunch of kids."

"But he's Harry Potter!" Amelia cried, shocked that they would leave them to fend for themselves against the Dark Lord.

"And you're Amelia Bones," Sue retorted. "He has no obligation to the wizarding world beyond his normal rights as a citizen and I bet you don't require every citizen to fight any dark wizard that comes out of the woodwork do you?"

"No but-"

"Exactly, so why should Harry have to fight him? It's the job of the police and army to fight terrorists and homicidal maniacs, not children! We have agreed to help the world as a whole with this Dementor problem because we are getting well paid, both in magic and other benefits. Plus we have been handed the weapons to destroy them and we have a constant advisor. That and it's open ended; we can destroy them at leisure, picking them off while the kids grow before taking the rest out and reaping the rewards. That is what we agreed to and that is what we will do."

There was a moment of shocked silence after Sue's diatribe before Lilly spoke again.

"The point is valid," she said slowly. "You have no obligation under our agreement and none under wizarding law. However there is another factor: Voldemort himself. Harry bested him as a child and Voldemort is among many other things a megalomaniac, his ego will not allow him to let the one to beat him once get away untouched. What is more he heard the first part of a prophecy that said '_the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches' _which was found to mean Harry, implying that the only person who could beat him is Harry. He will not allow a real threat to him to go unopposed. That is why Harry needs to kill Voldemort; because he will keep hunting him and all of you to get to him. He will not bargain, nor will he stop until Harry is dead or a sworn servant which will never happen."

"And you didn't tell us this because..." Jason demanded.

"It was always the case," Lilly responded calmly. "And we did tell you: we would give you weapons that will help defeat Voldemort. And the prophecy Sally made said that you would "unlock the power he knows not" which is a quote from the first prophecy, another clue. And finally after that you would need to deal with the ministry: there are many enemies, both in and out of Voldemort's camp that infest the ministry at all levels, from clerks to the advisors to the minister himself. Many of them quite literally get away with murder and torture using the corruption in the ministry and wizengamont. A bribed court could easily convict you of murder after you kill Voldemort and/or brand you as a new dark lord yourself making the rest of you lives horrible and probably short."

All the kids looked white at Lilly's calm and rational breakdown of the world around them and where they would sit: right in the eye of the storm. Charles summed it up with a well placed volley of swear words and it was a testament to the mood that neither of the mothers there bothered to scold him for his language.

"Exactly," Lilly said before proceeding gently trying to soothe the children's fears a little. "The situation was never going to be easy; Harry was a marked man before he was born but things are easier now; we're starting early, if they can delay Voldemort's return by a decade or two they would be immortal. The contract promises true immortality, not just lasting life but death proof as well; the entire Death Eater corps could let rip with killing curses and you could just walk through it.

"That and you have other advantages. Most wizards are dependent on their wands; take away their wand and they have very little magic if any. They start learning at Hogwarts when they are eleven and apart from Aurors rarely learn much in the way of duelling tactics. The reason the death eaters were so successful last time was, 1: no one bothered to do anything for ages, it was only after purebloods started dying that they took notice. 2: they use unforgivable curses a lot as well as other nasty dark arts spells so they do a lot of damage in a short space of time and 3: they used guerrilla tactics, hit and run, terror tactics. Half the time the aurors were there for cleanup rather than fighting. Voldemort had gotten too many people in the ministry for them to work effectively and Dumbledore, the only one who had the power to stop things outside the ministry, was too busy trying to redeem them to bother fighting."

"Not much has changed," Arthur muttered to himself.

"And why not?" Emma growled. "If it's that obvious change it! The minister is a bad egg, get rid of him. Chuck the guys you have evidence against in jail and throw the rest into the street! It's that simple."

"The wizarding world is a quagmire of politics, inter-house alliances and intrigue," Amelia said tiredly. "Most are bound to do what they did because of old alliances that would badly hurt their house standing if they reneged on. They would honour alliances by accepting bribes or cashing in life-debts to keep them out of prison while the truly corrupt line their pockets. Even tacit approval goes a long way when the approving house is powerful. That and evidence of bribes is very difficult to come by and it's even more difficult to keep as a lot 'goes missing'."

"So the people who do the chucking out are the ones who should be chucked out in the first place?" Jason half asked half stated. "You really aren't pushing a good case here."

"I think we're getting off track," Arthur put in before Amelia could reply. "We are here primarily to record the prophecy, inform you of the laws for underage magic and find out how you breached the wards on the Department of Mysteries."

"How do we record the prophecy?" Sally asked. "It doesn't hurt does it?"

"No it's completely painless," he replied with a kind smile. "We just need to extract a memory which takes a few seconds and we do the rest back at base."

"We don't lose our memories do we?" Sue asked cautiously.

"No we just take a copy, all I do is place my wand tip to you temple and you think of the memory like so," he placed his wand to his temple and pulled away gently with a silvery thread attached to the tip. He waved his wand and it expanded into the air showing Amelia and himself coming into the room of death just in time to see the shimmer of Harry and Co vanishing. After a quick showing he let the memory dissipate into the air before extracting the memory from Harry.

Once again the harsh tones of the prophecy filled the room.

Once it ended Arthur looked at the notes he had taken on the wording and conjured a glass ball to hold the memory in.

"Do you know anything about what it means?" Arthur asked.

"It's quite simple," Lilly said. "The prophecy says that a choice will be made and describes the three who can make it. The next few lines state what they will do. The next line implies they will be successful and that three brothers failed to get the boon they got. The final line states the results of their actions."

"It's you three I presume," Amelia said. When they nodded she continued. "The rest of it is partially cryptic; I doubt I would get any of it if you hadn't described you meeting to me. Souls of the lost is Dementors, power he knows not from another prophecy, three brothers I sort of get and I have an inkling about the hallows. The dark lord, lord of grey and council are You-Know-Who, Dumbledore and the ministry or wizengamont. Correct?"

"That's our interpretation yes," Emma confirmed and the others nodded.

"Well that's one thing done," Amelia said. "The next is the underage laws, using magic outside of school is forbidden and can lead to you wand being snapped, expulsion from school and binding of your magic."

"I don't like the sound of binding magic," Harry said looking nervous.

"It's one of the worst things that can happen to a magical person," said Lilly with a look of disgust on her face. "It's usually used on children who perform serious crimes: rape, murder and so on. It locks their magic away permanently so they can't' use it and from what I've learnt on the other side it also seriously shortens their life span. It's also one of the ways the ministry discriminates against muggleborns; the underage laws are only able to be applied to non magical homes, so only muggleborns are able to be caught. They simply cannot tell the difference between the parents or siblings' magic and the child's, they rely on the parents to enforce discipline."

"WHAT?" Jason yelled. "So magical born children can study and play to their hearts content while my daughter would be vilified and thrown out if she tried to do the same?"

"Yes," Lilly said. "I was planning on having James raise the issue in the wizengamont but we went into hiding before we could try. I was looking at restricting it to home use only, not public and the secrecy statute remaining the same. However the laws as they are only specify _wand _magic, so you can keep going with what you are doing now as much as you want. It's a loophole that no one bothers to close because, 1: they can't track it and 2: they don't think that anyone can do magic without a wand. At least not till they're in their eighties or something after decades of practice like Dumbles."

Amelia looked thoughtful for a few seconds before slowly saying, "You're right. The law only covers wanded magics."

"That brings us to the skill you displayed earlier," Arthur said. "How did you penetrate the wards on the Department of Mysteries?"

Everyone looked at the kids expectantly.

"Well," Hermione said uncertainly. "We never knew there was anything there, it wasn't any different from any other place we've gone to."

"No feeling of being pushed back? Having to move through a viscous liquid or anything?" Amelia pressed.

"No nothing different," Harry said. "I can show you if you like?"

"That would be best," Amelia agreed. They both looked at Jason and Emma who gave them the nod.

"Take my hand," Harry said and with a shimmer they vanished. They returned a few seconds later. "That was to our house," he said.

"It's a strange sensation, like being sucked in or falling but without moving or being squeezed," Amelia said partially to herself. "And now try the Veil again," she continued, talking to Harry. Again two shimmers and a few seconds later they were back.

"And as they said no difference," Amelia mused. "What do you know about this method of travel?"

"We based it on wormhole theory," Emma said. "We just create a gateway between two places, we don't know much more about it than that."

"We just picture the air bending to make a hole that we go through to where we need," Hermione said. "It's not much more than that."

Everyone looked at Lilly who shrugged. "I've got no idea."

"But you knew just about everything else," Sue pointed out. "Why not this?"

"I can know everything that is known by the dead," Lilly said. "Which means I'm up to date on most world affairs, in both worlds. I also know a lot about magical theory and how people think. If something is said that isn't heard by someone who later dies, I can't know it unless a ghost hears it. I therefore know most laws, magical theory and so on but the reasons for peoples actions can easily remain a mystery. I know a lot about what is going on at Hogwarts because of all the ghosts, but other places I don't."

"Makes sense," Sue admitted. "So nothing like this has been done before?"

"Not the warping no," she said. "Using magic like the kids do was fairly common in the really ancient times, before the rise of the Egyptian empire. It is nowadays known as high magic. The difference between high and low magic is sort of like the difference between muggle magic and wizards magic; muggles just create an illusion of change, reality is the same, it is in the mind that the change is perceived. Magic that normal witches and wizards use tricks reality into doing things, making a space larger or making a force that wasn't there before, all driven by magic. But where normal magic tricks reality to have things seem to change, high magic truly changes them. When you change a twig into a spoon, a wizard just makes reality think it's a spoon and reality treats it like it is a spoon, until the magic wears off and reality realises it wasn't actually a spoon.

"High magic changes the matter of the twig into that of a spoon and it stays that way, adding mass and changing what was there, carbon into iron, hydrogen to nickel and so on."

"I thought High magic was extremely difficult and dangerous," Amelia said surprised and worried. "That it can harm the caster horribly as well as people around them."

"In some cases you are right," Lilly said. "But where wizard magic or low magic is about intent, high magic is will. You might think that they are the same but they are different; intent is something you want to happen, will is wanting something to happen and a push to _do _it. It's like the difference between looking outside and deciding to go for a picnic and telling you other half to grab a blanket and getting some food ready. Much of the magic you do is a slight mix of both, intent with a bit of will thrown in. Those without enough will to do what they will to happen, or aren't focussed on anything specific can have the energies fly around wily nilly. That is where the danger comes from. With the kids they have more than enough will and can easily control their power."

"That's a relief," Sue said smiling. "And now I think that we should move on to the business we wanted with you Amelia."

"Put simply," Jason began. "We need a magical guardian for Harry and his parents will lists you as the most favourable guardian available."

"I would have thought it would be someone else, like Minerva or Fillius," Amelia said looking surprised.

"Who?"

"Minerva McGonagall and Fillius Flitwick," she replied.

"McGonagall was listed after you," Hermione said. "The order was Sirius Black, Alice Longbottom, Remus Lupin, you and then McGonagall. So we have one in prison, one a vegetable, a werewolf before you and apparently the ministry would object to a werewolf."

"Stupid prejudice," Lilly said looking irritated.

"You knew he was a werewolf?" Sue asked shocked.

"Of course," she said with slightly narrowed eyes. "I figured it out in my third year, he went to school with James and I, he was in our year. James and the others figured it out at the end of their first year; they were closer to him than I was then."

"I thought werewolves were sort of savage," Hermione said timidly with a hint of curiosity.

"That's just legend and prejudice," Lilly said firmly. "Some are like that, but most are just normal people who have a disease that makes them turn into a ravening beast once night a month. James used to say that I turned into a ravening beast for three days a month," she said the last part with a strange mix of irritation, amusement, wistfulness and affection.

"Huh?" the kids asked as the adults all chuckled.

"We'll tell you when you're older," Jason chuckled.

"Dad!" Hermione whined. "Stop telling all these jokes and hints that you won't tell us about." She finished with a pout.

Harry and sally giggled at the look on Hermione's face. "What?"

"You always look like that when someone doesn't tell you something," Sally said through her giggles. "It's so funny."

"Hey!"

"Back on track," Jason said amused. "We need Harry to have a new magical guardian and you're the next on the list so will you be his magical guardian?"

"I suppose," Amelia said slowly. "Did it say anything about any requirements I would need to fill?"

"As Harry's seven you would need his ok first," Jason replied. Everybody looked at Harry.

"Would you let me stay with mum and dad?" Harry asked.

"Of course, but would you mind spending some time at my place so I can get to know you? I'd also like you to meet my niece; she could always do with another friend, or three."

"Sure."

"Well that's settled then," Jason said clapping his hands. "Now we need to-"

"Hold on," Amelia cut in. "Arthur and I need to be getting back to the ministry, as we've done our job here and we spent a lot of time on this mission today as it is. I presume you have some questions for us?"

"'course," he replied frowning a little at being cut off.

"Lilly should be able to answer many of the questions you have," Amelia said. "Once I've finished work I could come round if you want."

"That sounds good," Sue said looking at the other adults.

"Would I be able to bring Susan as well?" Amelia asked. "I don't spend much time with her due to work so she might like to go somewhere with me and she might make a few friends to."

"Sounds lovely," Emma said smiling. "I'm sure the kids would love to meet a magical raised kid their own age." She turned to her husband. "Do you want to stay here for the rest of the nights we booked or just go home?"

"I think we should go home," he said. "It would be best to let the kids meet in their home and get used to this in a safe place in case there are any more shocks like the seer one."

"So we will meet you there around seven?" Amelia asked.

"That is fine, we'll see you then."

...

Dumbledore sank into his armchair in his office, closing his eyes against the headache caused by a long day. He loathed dealing with muggle bureaucracy; for a start it was all about the privacy of the person! What a silly idea! There are people who need to know things about everyone and not giving them to him of all people was ridiculous. That was the next part: they didn't know who he was. If he walked into the governments of just about all of Europe and most of the Middle East and Asia people would be throwing themselves at his feet to do his bidding. He had carefully built his powerbase in Britain to the levels it was by the early fifties and by now had the ear of most of the ministers on the planet. Being supreme Mugwump helped a lot of course. All he had to do was let slip of his academic pursuits, beat Grindelwald and manoeuvre around for a few years to get himself in with the governments and hey presto!

At the moment he was just about supreme ruler of Britain; he had the cushiest job, as chief warlock he could decide which cases went to trial or laws were discussed and so controlled the law and by extension he controlled the minister: all he had to do was quietly state, his opinion while graciously declining himself and there we go the puppet of his choice was elected and was generally grateful for his support. The best thing was that it had all been so simple. He knew what Grindelwald was up to in Germany long before war broke out; he was the one who planted the idea after all. When they were young and he was pretending to be Grindelwald's friend he had cast a series of compulsion charms on him, making him favour spells Dumbledore could easily counter and weak against his strongest spells. Then he had sent the fool off to gather those hallows that many believed would make someone invincible so he could stroll in and grab them for himself when he beat him. He only let the war go on so long so that people would love him all the more when he ended the menace of Grindelwald once and for all.

He thinking of Grindelwald he remembered his dear little sister, Arianna. As always thinking of her brought a surge of sadness and anger, sadness that she was gone and anger at the muggles. Barbarians to a man they were to do that to his sweet little sister who had never been right after those teenagers attack. That they would do the same to their own kin was even more repulsive, yet it all sowed the seeds of his final victory. He smiled to himself at the irony that the muggles own hatred of magic would mould the weapon that he would use to catapult himself to the status of supreme ruler of the world and from there to rule the magical world. Never again will magicals suffer the ignominy of hiding what they are for fear of a bunch of savages who strike out at magic wherever they see it. Everything he did really was for the greater good of the wizarding world. And himself but that was just the cherry on top.

It was his weapon that was the cause behind his latest headache. Some group of do-gooder muggles had gotten the muggle police involved in Harry after some accidental magic on Harry's part and put the Dursleys in jail. Three months of waiting and ferreting around in the infernal red tape of the child welfare system he found that Harry had already been allocated a new set of guardians who could be trusted not to continue the Dursleys work. It had then taken him the best part of a week to track down exactly what happened and they a full day to get the Dursleys back in their home ready to receive Harry when he got him tomorrow. How exactly to go about it though? Memory charms all round of course for a start. He would need to remove the family itself so they wouldn't do any damage after though. But how to do it? Hmmmm, decisions decisions...

...

At 8:45 that night Emma, Jason, Sue, Charles and Amelia were all seated at the table in the Grangers kitchen, sipping a glass of wine each and talking. The kids were watching a movie together after an hour of training Susan how to use high magic with mixed results. She had picked up the ball of light after about ten minutes but simple levitation wasn't coming very well. The adults were discussing the situation with a lot of advice and guidance from Lilly, who was projected from the stone in the middle of the table.

"The number of people who can do high magic in any sort of pure or semi pure form is small," she said in response to Amelia's question of Susan's progress. "The only form of high magic that is commonly practiced, in much more than a 50:50 mix, today is apparation. Even then not everyone is able to do so regularly or with much accuracy and range, usually only 100 miles with an accuracy of less than a metre. You've seen what happens when people try to go too far and it's not pretty. The number of people who actually can do high magic to any real degree is about one in 20 and that is only the basics: levitation, light etc. Most don't have enough will or magical power to do much.

"Of those who can use high magic only one in 10 could pass to what you might call an OWL standard and of those only one in 20 could pass NEWTs. With the magical population at around 20,000 that means there should be only around four or five people capable of NEWT level High magic in the UK. Sally, Harry and Hermione are special cases; each was isolated and so had to have the mental control and will power to succeed despite peer pressure, each is magically powerful and getting stronger as time passes, each discovered their magic early without outside biases to taint their views of what is or isn't possible and they each have each other. Quite frankly I couldn't recommend a better combination for a person to learn this branch of magic other than adding in a skilled tutor. At least if you _only_ look at purely learning, if you don't you'd remove the abuse and isolation."

"How does this reflect on Susan?" Amelia asked looking a bit confused.

"For a start her will has not had to be shaped like the others have by an isolated and in Harry's case abusive environment" Lilly said. "She still has a strong will but it hasn't had all that much practice. She has a slightly above average magical core and has the trio tutoring her, but her main failing at this point at this point is conditioning; she subconsciously doesn't believe it to be possible to use magic without a wand as that is what she has always been taught. That undermines her will and saps the focus needed to shape a spell."

"I'm rather cautious about you saying that an isolated or abusive environment is best Mrs Potter," said Emma sharply.

"I guess that was badly phrased," Lilly admitted. "What I meant was that the circumstances of each of the three had built the necessary skills to perform high magic beyond what you would usually expect. It's a case of every cloud having a silver lining, the abuse and isolation was horrible but they at least got something out of it, 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is an appropriate phrase here. You don't want people trying to kill you just so if you survive you're stronger you just look at the benefits if someone tries."

"OK, sorry," Emma said mollified.

"You mentioned a magical core and that it can grow," Jason said. "Can you expand on that? What does the core do and is there any way of measuring it or something?"

"The magical core of a person is where they derive any expressible magical power," Amelia said. "Muggles don't have one while squibs have one that cannot be really made to influence anything outside their body but allows them to see magical buildings and work some devices that require magical power."

"That's not quite true," Lilly interjected. "Muggles do have a magical core and it is expressed. The expression of the magic is known as 'sentience'. All sentient creatures have a magical core; it's just that it is extremely small. Without magic of any kind you will die or at least go into a persistent vegetative state."

Amelia looked surprised at this. "Really? But the Goldman-Weirmag scale gives muggles a score of 0!"

"That just means that's the lowest the scale can measure," Lily replied. "Or at least that spell. The Celsius scale doesn't begin at 0, nor does Fahrenheit or even the calendar; that begins 2000 years ago and we know there was life before then."

"I take it there is a way of measuring a magical core from your talks of a scale," Charles said.

"Yes the Goldman-Weirmag scale," Lilly said. "It gives a reading from 0-49, 0 being a muggle, 1-3 being a squib, 4 is the least powerful witch or wizard recognised or admitted into Hogwarts though they only usually get OWLs at most in practical based studies like charms or transfiguration. 8 to 11 is the average for a witch or wizard entering Hogwarts, and around 15 to 18 average for a NEWT graduate."

"Where do you stand," Sue asked, curious.

"I'm a 27," Amelia said. "Well above average for my age."

"I was 28 when I became an Unspeakable," Lilly said. "Most of the natural growth of a person's magical core comes between the ages of 11 and 21, with the average growth of 1 point per year. From there it slows to 1 every 10 to 20 years or more, the higher you are the more you grow. Some of the most powerful people have scores of 30 or more, Dumbledore had a score of 34, the fourth largest recorded since it was created in the early 13th century and the others were 35."

"Where do you think the kids are at?" Jason and Charles asked together.

"At a guess from what I've seen," Lilly said slowly. "Around 11, they would most likely be 14 or 15 by the time they start Hogwarts and in their high twenties when they graduate. It's common to test a witch or wizard for their power level when they have their first bout of accidental magic; Harry tested at 6 when he was a year old and I'd expect the two girls to be the same."

"Susan was four when I tested her a year ago," Amelia put in. "So she'd probably be around five or six now and 10 or 11 when she gets to Hogwarts."

"So none of them are as powerful as this Dumbledore fellow," Sue said sounding disappointed.

"True but Dumbledore is getting on 130 or 140," Amelia said. "I can never remember which, but he has had all that time to grow his core so obviously it would be bigger. When those three reach his age I wouldn't be surprised if they measured 39 or even 40."

"Their main advantage in life will be high magic though," Lilly said. "In anything really. Almost anything that low magic can do, high magic can do better and more efficiently. Apparation for example; that takes months of practice to learn at school, is uncomfortable, easily warded against and limited range. Warping has no known limits to range, doesn't require a lot of magic, is silent and a lot more comfortable. Most other magics will be similarly changed, like food for example. It's impossible to transfigure or conjure food and drink, at least food and drink that actually lasts past your stomach. Transfigurations break down when the substance they are turned into breaks down, reverting to either what they came from, or nothing if they were conjured. What transfiguration does, even 'permanent' ones, is make the universe think that the object is now something else, when it breaks down the field attached to it the illusion is gone. High magic on the other had doesn't have that field, it changes one thing into another in a true physical way. So the kids could easily transfigure rocks into food if they wanted."

"I don't get why will makes such a difference yet does the same things," Emma said. "It's just confusing."

Lilly thought for a few seconds. "Ok think of it in a different way, like say an old steam powered ship compared to nuclear powered carrier. The steam ship burns coal that turns the propellers, it's dirty, inefficient and you use a lot of fuel. The nuclear ship produces a lot more power, more efficiently, with less waste and less fuel needed. Each drives a propeller that moves the ship, but they use different sources and the power is put to use in different ways. Come to think of it that is a particularly good example, since nuclear plants convert steam to electricity for power transfer and will is like intent with a bit more oomph."

"Oh, ok."

"So do people use magic words at all?" Emma asked.

"Some do some don't," Amelia replied. "Most NEWT subjects require at least some wordless casting to get a decent mark but not many people use it all the time. Only those that are particularly good, practiced or just want to show a bit of power do the whole 'everything with a wave of your wand' thing. Most people stick to wand movements and incantations because it's easier or if they are doing a spell on a person."

"Why on a person?" Jason asked.

"Wands can kill just as easily as they cure," Amelia said sounding businesslike. "I've seen murder cases where a person thought their killer was just cleaning their robes for them after they got out of the floo, just pointed their wand, silent cast and dead. It's only not done within a family where they trust each other, I don't usually do it with Susan and I know Arthur doesn't worry about it at home but elsewhere it's wand movements and incantations."

"Is it really that common?" He asked shocked.

"No, not really," Lilly said. "Most of the time though it's a courtesy but it is still important in society. The wizarding world is still stuck in the eighteen hundreds tech wise and even further in regards to social concerns. The house system is in full force; families like the Blacks, Bones, Potters, and Longbottoms are all the height of society and enjoy a lot of privileges beyond what is normal. Even the newer houses are afforded some respect."

"Come again?"

"Basically there is magic in the bonds of a family," Lilly explained. "Some spells rely on the bonds of a family, life debts can be passed down through the line, and there is some magical influence in a person's abilities that are passed down through the generations. Potters for example were always good at transfiguration and warding, the Bones' I believe were good at politics, the Blacks were traditionally good with, well some of it is classed as dark magic but most of it is harmful. Each house can pass specialities down through the line but they aren't absolutes, more of a general trend."

"We Bones' are also known to dabble in potion making too," Amelia agreed.

"Anyway, the houses are the corner stone of our society; a large number of laws and customs reinforce, or have sprung up as a result of the house system. In some of the oldest and most traditional pureblood families go so far as to make marriages mostly politically and economically oriented. Alliances of mutual gain and of course to produce an heir. There is also great power given to the truly old families like the Potters and Bones', their heads are almost always Lords and have hereditary seats on the wizengamont, the national court/parliament. Anyway things like assassinations or other politically motivated actions can be done under the pretence of a helpful spell so people always use incantations and wand movements on people who aren't family or close friends."

"So what purpose do the words serve in the first place?" Jason asked.

"I'm not sure the exact reasons but the overall effect is it's easier to cast the spell, the spell has more power and I think it acts as a trigger for your magic. I'll have to ask one of the theorists on my side to explain."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes just thinking about what had happened in this the longest and most action packed day of their lives, full of revelations, surprises and new ideas.

"Just one thing Amelia," Jason said, breaking the silence. "Is it possible to place wards around our homes? Keep out any unwanted witches and wizards who might come here?"

"That would be a good idea," she said. "I could set up a basic intruder ward anti-apparation and intent based stunner ward in about ten minutes but that is the limits of what I can do. I'd recommend discussing a more complete ward scheme with the goblins, they have some of the best and they are always discreet."

"When you get to Egypt you can find some truly ancient wards that we can add," Lilly said. "That and Potter manor has some of the best books on warding in existence; any curse-breaker or ward crafter would kill to get their hands on those books. You can add those once the kids are familiar with warding."

"Did I miss something?" Amelia asked. "When were they going to Egypt?"

"The Potters have a secret crypt and storage area there," Lilly explained. "You must not tell anyone of it, the only reason I'm telling you is you would need to know where he is as his guardian. When they get there they can start making their own wand/staff which is perfectly within the law: it states that you cannot _buy_ a wand. The other purebloods use this all the time with family wands so they get a head start."

"This world is messed up," Charles said shaking his head.

"Those were my thoughts as well when I learnt about these things," Lily said nodding her head in agreement. "When do you think you can get to Egypt?"

"Well we have a few days off in another month," Jason said. "Do you guys think you can get time off at the same time?"

"Possibly," Sue replied. "I've got some leave saved up, Charlie?"

"I can probably roster a few days, but we probably need someone to stay behind with Josh and Samuel, or we bring them with us."

"I wouldn't advise that," Lilly said. "some of the tombs there can be very nasty; as adults you should be able to react well and get out even if you don't have magic and the three kids have enough power and skill to keep themselves out of trouble but a couple of six and unders? They should be fine if everything goes well but if things go wrong they will be very vulnerable. Think of it like driving a car; they might be physically able to drive and on a simple straight stretch of road they would be quite passable, but in any tricky manoeuvres or in the case of losing control they would have no idea what to do and probably get hurt."

"One thing we never covered is the extent of the kid's abilities," Amelia said. "Their spell repertoire, power of casting and other factors that I would like to test them on if you don't mind; it would be good to see what level they are at before we move on to the books so I can guide them while they do it."

"Have you taught before?" Sue asked curious.

She nodded. "I taught Susan the basic things: mathematics, reading, writing and other basic skills. I also was an instructor for the Auror corps for a few years before I became head of the MLE."

After agreeing to have Sue watch Amelia put the kids through their paces the following day and talking about some inconsequential things, they woke the kids who had all fallen asleep on the couch and armchairs so they could say their goodbyes and leave for home. Soon the kids were all tucked into bed after their very long day.

...

Amelia slumped in her chair in her office looking over the paperwork she had received from the Children's Welfare department in the Ministry. She had called in a few favours there to make sure they wouldn't start bleating to everyone who crossed their path that Harry Potter had new guardians. It was standard stuff but she had to read it before signing it, magical contracts were sometimes like that. After signing them she contemplated what she would see tomorrow when she tested them but quickly gave up. She truly had no idea the amount those three had taught themselves in a few months but she was pleased that they seemed willing to help Susan. Her niece was the heiress to the Bones family, it being one of only five Ancient Families that were able to have a Matriarch or Patriarch and she herself was no longer able to have children thanks to a particularly dark curse she took to the gut in her twenties. The more she learned the better and she was seriously considering not sending her to Hogwarts, instead hiring tutors. She knew that there was little chance of Dumbledore being taken down any time soon; it needed to be done gradually, eroding his power base, showing evidence in the public eye to wear down his support and reduce his favour bank before finally going in for the kill.

The only thing that made this tolerable for her was that he would get justice someday at least. She hated when a plainly guilty person walked free without punishment or with almost none, possibly the worst was when the Nott patriarch was given a hundred galleon fine for raping a muggle woman. Even that was kept out of the papers and she knew that quite a few of the wizengamont and ministry had spoken out about it but the minister and the purebloods were not to be moved. There was little justice in this world despite her efforts. She had just started to think on the prophecy she had heard today when the clock struck and seeing that it was now almost eleven, turned in for the night.

**A/N **

**Many apologies for the long wait between updates, my muse had died on several occasions and the rest of the time I was otherwise occupied. There might be another long wait before the next chapter. I am also putting my other story, "Bonded" on hold for a while and will get back to it sometime in the future. THX Sarge.**


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